It was a painfully slow day at the ol' CE today -- there were points I expected tumbleweeds to start rolling through. Thankfully, things were deeply enlivened when Evil Ed Brubaker did the surprise pop-in around 3 PM, which nicely helped us kill 3 hours, hooray!

Ed, once a long time ago, lived in San Francisco, and was a CE customer. Back in the days before he became a Corporate Sell-Out, Working For The Man, Ed used to come around and be a Little Black Rain Cloud, always moaning about how much the comics business sucked, and how he got no respect, and yadda yadda. Don't get me wrong, we loved it, because, yeah the comics business can and does suck, and Ed wasn't getting the respect he deserved, and yadda yadda. It's just that if I could cartoon at all, and you held a gun to my head and said "draw Ed Brubaker", I might draw a picture of Eeyore in a Porkpie Hat.

So I was a little surprised (happily so!!) to see Little Miss Sunshine Brubaker, all happy and smiling and filled with joy to all things comic-al. I guess having the nest selling single issue of the last year can do that to a feller, right?

Honestly, it couldn't have happened to a better guy, and we couldn't have possibly be happier for all of his success, and I like the fact that it's made him a Smiling Guy, because while I liked 'ol Dour Ed, I like the Happy Brube better, I think.

So, anyway, yay that!

I've decided that, no matter what he says now, I'm not going to remove Jeff from the "contributors" list. He doesn't actually ever have to post, but he'll always have the ability to, in case he changes his mind.

I'll make no secret of the fact that I think he's (easily!) the best of the three writers here (I'm the worst, pretty clearly), because he is actually edumicated about writin' and stuff. I just know if I like something or not... Jeff knows WHY.

Anyway, I hope he decides that posting a review of something occasionally doesn't violate this new focus. Even if it is only quarterly or something, I don't think he should let that particular set of muscles grow cold (unless he starts doing reviews for pay, in which case, yah forget about us!)

As for me, Jeff told me... uh three weeks ago now? You'll notice that's pretty much when MY volume of posts starting dropping, too. I mean, the Savage Critic as a blog, and as more than just my voice? That's all Jeff's fault, so having Jeff here was one of the things that kept me posting as often as I have -- trying to top him, and all.

(Look, there are worse motivations one can have)

So, I don't know much, but I do know that I won't be doing daily posting "any more" -- I'll shoot for thrice a week, though. Graeme says he enjoys posting daily, so, alright, he can be insane and keep that up (My problem is my boss is CONSTANTLY looking at my work...)

As for the future of the blog, really what I'd like to do is find 2-3 more people who share a similar style or sensibility and who know when to snark, and when not to, and get it so the Critic IS "multiple content daily", but NOT dependent on one person to make it so. I'd also really like it if we could figure out a way to monetize the Critic without selling out TOO badly (or triggering your epilepsy), but everything we've looked at so far seemed like it was too little money involved for the general intrusiveness of ads.

So, if you have any ideas, I'm always glad to hear them.

There's also a new TILTING AT WINDMILLS up on Newsarama. Follow that link to read me talk about late comics and weekly comics both. I think it turned out pretty OK for once!

Muh, one quick review before I go off and decide to have some "time off":

ULTIMATES 2 #13: Maybe, just maybe it is because there was most of a year between issues that this didn't connect to me at all, but I kinda doubt it.

The big problem is, of course, the protagonists are struggling against a faceless horde, and are rescued by another faceless horde, so there's nothing even remotely resembling human stakes through most of the proceedings (this is a common mistake of Millar's, of course)

Big widescreen action is fine enough, but it needs to have something human to anchor it against -- and I don't really care about any of these iterations of these characters enough to do so naturally. There could have been some interesting through line in here via "Sorry for thinking you were a mental patient, Thor", but that's never addressed here at all.

About the only thing I DID like was the Black Widow scene at the end.

And what about the art? I hope it's not me, because I found parts of it to be downright sketchy -- probably the biggest offender is that full page half-shot (? I thought a page was missing) of the explosion. Jinkies!

Most perplexing of all is the final scene. Why is this here? Did I forget some opening sequence from a year and a half back this is meant to link to? Even if there is, I can't see what possible resonance that scene could have to the events of this issue, or those leading up to it.

All in all, not worth the wait, and while it may tighten up in paperback, for this, as a single entertainment experience, I have to go with AWFUL.

What did YOU think?

-B