My 4 Favorite Obscure Comic Mini-Series of the New Millennium

   I've just turn 30, and despite my longtime comic book guy status, I'm not morbidly obese, I'm not a virgin, and I don't have a ponytail.
   I have always loved comic books. They are a unique form of creativity, combining both the written word and the visual artistic medium. The problem is that all to often, they get a bum rap. Sure, you have your standard status quo superhero vs. supervillian type crap, where nothing changes by the end of the story, and for a long time, that's how it was(Thanks, Adam West). But there have been more and more realistic, thought provoking themes in comics as the years have passed, especially in the independent companies, expanding out to include all sorts of subjects. But it's only recently that the graphic novel has been getting the recognition it really deserves. Sure, that recognition is in the form of movies, but hey, it drums up interest in the books, right? 
 I have collected my four personal favorites of the last twelve years to shed some light on how incredibly awesome and unique some of these more obscure series are. If you're not a fan of the standard hero fare, these series can help introduce you to the true potential of the medium. And no matter what, they make excellent reading.  
   Let it be known, however, that these books are of an adult nature, and they can get quite a bit more graphic with the R-rated materials than a standard movie. So I sarcastically warn you to keep the kiddies away, lest their eyes burst into flames and their innocent heads explode. Oh, and if you are one of those rabid fans of censorship for the sake of morality, piss off. I stopped being a fan of the disgustingly wholesome adventures of Archie and the gang a loooong time ago.  
 Now read on, and hopefully you'll find something interesting. All these can be found on Amazon, too.



Black Summer
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Juan Jose Ryp
  "I did what I had to do, Tom. What you would have done. What the rest of the old team would have done if they could see straight."

  The superhero team known as the 7 Guns arose in response to an increasing threat of corruption, violence and drugs in their unnamed west coast city. Using highly advanced cybernetics and weaponry to give themselves super human abilities, this "association of politically-aware young scientist-inventors" led by Tom Noir, John Horus and their mentor Frank Blacksmith, set to cleaning up their city.    
   Years later, Frank Blacksmith is dead. Tom Noir was crippled by a car bomb that also killed Laura Torch and has disappeared from the public eye. John Horus, the most powerful of them all, has just assassinated the President in the name of justice. And now the story really starts.

  What I liked the most about this story is it's humanity. In most superhero comics, the good guys are either godlike and perfect, or have one flaw inserted into them to make them more human. In Black Summer, the heroes are far more ambivalent. They bicker with each other. Tom has become an alcoholic. And the one guy who has unshakable faith in justice is the one who killed the President. 
Several flashbacks during the story show how the Seven Guns came to be, and what motivates each of it's members. As the story progresses, you get the idea that they don't really like each other anymore, but the thread that united them originally is still there. Even though Laura Torch is never shown outside of a flashback, it's obvious that she was the heart and soul of the Seven Guns, and her death is directly responsible for how the team ended up.  The story is less about the superpowers and more about the people who weld those powers, how it affects them, and why having the power of a god doesn't make you the only one who is right. 
 Warren Ellis crafts a wonderful story about how human a superhuman can be, and really nails home the point of why great power requires great responsibility. Juan Jose Ryp's hyper realistic artwork makes the story even more appealing, and is a perfect match to Eilis's style of writing.   
 
Also Try: Pretty much everything Warren Ellis has ever written. The man is a freaking genius.
Planetary and Transmetropolitan, however, are the best to start with.



The Adventures of Barry Ween: Boy Genius
Writer and Artist: Judd Winick
 " Holy shit! Barry's got a light saber!!"       
"...Like every putz in this mega-sector since the prequels.."

   The most intelligent carbon based life form on Earth just so happens to be a foul-mouthed ten year old named Barry Ween. This series chronicles the humorous escapades of Barry and his best friend Jeremy, who happens to be the only person who really knows how smart Barry is. Barry and Jeremy frequently find themselves in a plethora of hilarious and bizarre situations, like having to help a sarcastic alien, saving Barry's parents from a Bigfoot and Jeremy accidentally being turned into a giant purple dinosaur.

  First thing you need to know is that this book will make you laugh so hard that there's a good chance you'll pee yourself a little. It embodies the spirt and awesomness of Calvin & Hobbes, minus the political correctness. Barry's adventures mostly revolve around accidents involving Barry's many inventions(usually caused by Jeremy and his ADHD), Barry trying to exist in the "normal" world without his vast intellect being discovered, and random weirdness, often involving monkeys.
 The dialogue is intelligent, funny and profanity laden(you will pick up some truly awesome expressions), the story-lines are really original, and like Calvin & Hobbes, there is really a sweet side to the series main characters. Barry could take over the world in less than a week if he wanted to, but he has trouble really talking to the one girl he actually has a crush on.      

   Also try: Winick's serial comic Frumpy the Clown, and his graphic novel Pedro and Me.



Uzumaki
Writer and Artist: Junji Ito
"Yukie, Dear...Come join me in the Spiral..."
  
  Kurozu- Cho is a town cursed by spirials.
It starts with one obsession. As the time passes, the curse's power grows over the town's folk, and increasingly horrific events occur more and more often. It finally culminates with the town's destruction and the revelation of the spiral's dark, ancient secret .                            

  Uzumaki is hands down the most unique, creepy and utterly engaging horror story I have ever read. I honestly could care less for manga, but this was the first one I could really appreciate.
 Ito is able to take a simple shape and make it an unbelievable icon of terror. The story is told through the perspective of Kirie Goshima, as she first witnesses her boyfriend Shuichi's father's ultimately fatal fascination with spirals. Through her eyes, you watch fellow students begin turning into giant snails, her own hair turn against her, and what is likely the most unpleasant hospital stay ever. Not only does Junji Ito craft a fantastic horror story, his art breaths an unspeakable life into his words. If you find the idea of spirals being scary laughable, just take a look at the pic above. 

Also try: Junji Ito's other full length graphic novels: "Tomie" and "Gyo". The guy goes out to far left field, but that makes the horror all the more disturbing.




Chronicles of Wormwood
 Writer: Garth Ennis
 Artist: Jacen Burrows
"My name is Danny Wormwood, and I'm the Antichrist. How I ended up with a rabbit is beyond me."

   The Antichrist has been born, and it turns out he's not such a bad guy. Instead of starting the Apocalypse, he spends his free time in a bar with his best friends, the brain damaged reincarnation of Jesus and a sentient, foul-mouthed rabbit named Jimmy.
 All Danny really cares about is living his life as he wants to, which puts him completely at odds with his supposed role in the end of the world, and that's not going over well with quite a few major players, most notable of those being his dad, Satan.
  
  The sheer blasphemy of this book is part of what makes it great. It takes extremely crass and darkly humorous jabs at the Catholic church(wait till you see the first appearance of Pope Jacko) and Christianity in general, sure, but it also portrays an extremely intelligent view of the subject of good, evil and what free will can really mean.
 Danny Wormwood is a pretty decent guy. As far as being evil goes, the worse thing he does in the book is use his once-a-day supernatural abilities to switch a rude bartender's nose with his penis. Oh, and cheat on his girlfriend--with Joan of Arc. His best friend is Jay, a.k.a Jesus; who, before having the side of his head caved in by a L.A cop at a protest, decided along with Danny that they refuse to fulfill their roles as harbingers of the end of the world, choosing instead to let people live their lives as they see fit. You soon find out that not just Satan but also God(who went insane shortly after creating the universe) both want to end the world, and are going to go far lengths to force Danny's hand.     
  The stand out scene in the story by far is when Danny, Jay and Jimmy take a road trip through Heaven and Hell. It's absolutely wonderful to read. You find out that suicide bombers do go to Heaven and get their final, gleefully ironic reward, and that the road to Hell is paved with, in fact, mimes. Ennis weaves a fantastic story, perfectly combined with Jacen Burrows awesome artwork, which also includes gruesome variant covers featuring what happens to those souls who end up in Hell.      

Also try: What goes with Warren Ellis goes with Garth Ennis. Find and read all his stuff. Starting with Preacher.

Homosexuality: I love you, man

    There is a sizable group of people who believe that, despite all evidence, homosexuals are wrong, evil or making a choice. They also believe that they don't need to act as if homosexuals are actually people, like them.
I gotta be honest with you. This really ticks me off.
 Now you might be asking, "Shawn, you're a heterosexual. Why should this bug you so bad?" Well, it's for a verity of reasons. First of all, I have several good friends that are gay.  I'm the kind of guy who considers good friends part of my extended family, and treasures them, because really good friends are remarkably hard to find.
 Secondly, I've been treated like shit for a long time for being "different" and I can completely and happily emphasize with being crapped on for something that makes me me, because people would rather be ignorant dicks then get to know who I really am, or arrogantly assume they already do.
 Lastly because it shows a demoralizing lack of critical thinking, empathy and basic common fucking sense. I've been subjected to a ridiculous amount of bullcrap by people who think being smart is somehow wrong, and I have to tell you, I'm pretty damn tired of it. So please, allow me to share my humble view on the subject.
 So why do people have such an issue with homosexuality? Barring most of the religious reasons, I'll start with gender roles. We are generally all raised to identify with our gender. If we are boys, we usually grow up playing with action figures, playing army, stuff like that. Girls; barbie dolls, playing house, etc. This is what the foundations of our beliefs, and ultimately our whole set of perceptions are based on, that boys are supposed to act a certain way, and girls a different way. And the way humans are, is that our minds will fight to keep it that way, especially when we hit puberty and those foundations start being built on. They are further reinforced by our parents, our peers, and society in general.
  When we straight people see two guys holding hands, it creates a bit of an inner conflict with what we were raised to believe is how people are supposed to act. Some, like myself, simply incorporate this new information into our world view, find out what they can about it and accept it, because really, it doesn't threaten anyone personally. Others, for whatever reason, can't get over it, and come to the conclusion that, since it's creating a conflict, it must somehow be wrong. So they start looking for facts that justify this, and latch on to any tiny little thing that supports that flawed line of thinking, while ignoring facts to the contradictory and It's just stupid. Our minds evolved to be extraordinarily elastic, to problem solve. That's how we got to be 7 billion strong.
  There's still elasticity in the thinking of a homophobe, but it's creating an enemy, and then elastically finding ways to justify keeping that enemy. Blame evolution. We evolved through brutal competition, and that continues to drive us. But the problem is that we've reached a point when we don't need an enemy anymore, but a lot of people are just too damn stupid to realize that that competitive nature could be better used to push our entire species to it's full potential, not waste time on petty, useless, ignorance driven conflicts.
Now, some things to shine a light on:
 Some seem to think that gay men, in particular, are raving sex fiends, waiting to catch any man alone, so they can have their way with them. They are overlooking the fact that gay men have standards, just like straight men. Think about it: Are you insanely attracted to every women you see? Why would a gay guy be any different?
  There's this huge deal made about gay marriage violating "the sanctity of marriage". Oh, come on. So only people of the opposite gender can love each other? So straight people can get married, divorced, then married again(and again and again) and that's not violating anything? Screw that noise. I knew a gay couple that worked together better then most of the straight relationships I've seen or have been in. All gay marriage would be violating is an archaic, sexist, outdated view of perceived gender roles in our country that don't even really apply anymore. Why does marriage have to be between a man and a woman? I was under the impression it had more to do with being in love, right?
Which brings me to the religious aspect of this: blow it out your ass, Kirk Cameron.
It's perfectly fine for people to worship how they choose, but when they are using their belief system as an excuse to pass judgement on others based on their own hangups, it's hypocritical bullshit. If anyone started trying to ban Christianity because another religion said it's wrong and morally damaging, there would be a huge uproar from Christians about being unfairly attacked for being who they are. But yet here they are, doing it to someone else. I'm using Christians because, in the US, they are the largest organization on the gay-bashing list. And look, they put themselves in that position, not me. Bitch at Pat fucking Robertson if you need someone to blame.   
Oh, but wait! Homosexuality is some deviation in brain chemistry, and can be classed with pedophilia and other sexual perversions, right?
Jesus tap-dancing Christ. Really? Two consenting people who happen to be the same gender is anywhere close to kiddy-diddlers? Can I strangle you now?
 Do you actually know what pedophilia is about? It's about having power over someone. Someone who won't say no, who is not threatening to your ego, who you can use to your liking. Pedophilia is the brother of rape, and they stem from the same need to be completely in control. They don't involve love, they are about fulfilling a sick need for a deranged mind's ego and purpose. Pedophiles and rapists are sociopaths, who can't and don't care about how their actions affect other people.
Homosexuals care and love, and can feel empathy just like anyone else. In fact, more empathy then the morons who presume that there's something sick about them. There's nothing wrong with their brains, much less the concept of same-sex coupling.       
 Next up, that old standby: "It's unnatural."
News Flash! ...It's not.
  Homosexual behavior has been observed in close to 1,500 other animal species, and is pretty well documented. It don't get more natural then that. So evidence suggests it serves a purpose, even though those couples are unable to reproduce on their own, because there's also plenty of documentation showing same sex animal couples are just as good at parenting as male/female pairings. It has solid science backing it up, and I'd like to point out that science is a process, not a philosophy. It works with evidence. Lots of evidence.
 The other aggravating popular delusion is that your sexuality is a choice. OK, sure. Now tell me when exactly you chose to be attracted to members of the opposite sex. Oh, wait. You didn't, did you? I didn't think so.
 It's so unbelievably stupid to actually believe that someone would choose to be gay. Right, because they want to be targeted by dimwitted hatemongers like the KKK and the WBC? They want to be ostracized for being different? Why? It makes no freaking sense. Can you pick your skin color? Because that's how much of a choice you have over your sexuality.
 Some homosexuals I know knew they were gay before they even knew what the word implied. And it was awful growing up for them, because people kept trying to "correct" them. Do you have any idea what it would be like, being a child, constantly getting told you're wrong, and having no idea why? This is what some of my friends have faced. Some of them just didn't know what they were, and went with the norm, because they didn't really know what else to do. And when they finally figured it out, they had to face family and friends who all the sudden didn't seem to love them anymore, just because they had the audacity to go against the norm to be themselves.
No one would willingly subject themselves to this, and it's a fucking shame that people have to go through this disgusting, damaging shit in the first place. Because it's really not that hard to wrap a mind around the idea that gay or straight, that person is the same person they've always been, and it's not that hard to accept that person for who they are, and let your personal hangups go. 
People don't need to accept the reality of homosexuality, but they also don't need to open their mouths and spew ignorant shit about them either. We're all humans when it comes down to it, and the golden rule applies to all of us.

DRM: The Double Edged Sword

Well, Diablo 3 is finally out. For those of you who don't know, the first two Diablo games were two of about the coolest damn computer games ever to waste countless hours of my time. They were made by the fine folks who make those World of Warcraft games that have been popular around these days, and WoW really wouldn't exist if it weren't for the popularity of Diablo. Diablo 2 came out when I was in high school, and every chance I got, I was playing it along with my 3 best friends. When I went on deployment, I bought a copy of Diablo 2 to take with me. I still have the Diablo 2 and expansion discs sitting in my desk as I write this.
 But I'm a bit burned out. You see, we Diablo fans have been waiting over a decade for Diablo 3. We've been more then patient, and now we got it. And thanks to rabid fear of piracy, Blizzard screwed all of us over.
 I understand the fear of digital theft and the need for DRM. Sometimes, it's just easier to just download a bootleg version of a game, or a movie, or about anything in the electronic media; that stealing intellectual property, and theft is theft, plain and simple.
  But that doesn't mean the industries that rail against it are blameless victims.
 First of all, the movie and music industries will tell you they lose millions of dollars to online piracy. That's utter rubbish, and a flat out lie. There's absolutely no freaking way that you can magically produce numbers of people paying for a movie until they've actually gone to see it. And you can't tell how many of those people who might have seen it didn't because they got a bootleg. And either way, it's hard to feel bad for people who are filthy rich to begin with and have no problem using political influence to try to push out laws that do nothing but ensure they remain filthy rich. I'm not talking about the little people who help make the movies, I'm talking about CEO's, and studio heads, a-bags like that. They try to pass bullshit acts like SOPA, an act that could have gotten your facebook page shut down because you didn't pay to post a picture of a celebrity. This is not a paranoid rant, either, cause I took the time to research it, and what it boiled down to was the MPAA and the RIAA going to extreme lengths to keep people paying whatever the industry wants them to. Hell, Sony was putting out CD's with programs on them that would be installed on your computer the first time you put it in, without your knowledge or consent. These programs actually created security vulnerabilities that anyone with the right know-how could easily exploit, and would have allowed "someone" to monitor your computer. Which is a huge invasion of privacy, and as I recall, two wrongs don't make a right.   
However, speaking with my rougeish side, it's gotten down to the fact that people can actually get around having to pay for the utter shit the movie and music industries pump out these days. Online piracy is almost the modern day Robin Hood. You could theoretically download a movie that just hit theaters, see that it's a piece of crap, and not pay to sit in the movie theater. You could download that one decent song and not pay for a whole album of crap. And spending my teens and early 20's having to plunk down 20 some odd bucks a pop to get one good song back when everything was on CD(especially knowing how cheap it was to make said CD), those greedy bastards had it coming. So yeah, on the one hand, it's still stealing and it's wrong; but on the other hand, the consumer is finally getting the last laugh(and it sounds like Nelson from the Simpsons, too)
But it's biting us in the ass.
  The big guys are going to insane lengths to ensure that we pay for what they sell. And that brings me off my tangent back to Diablo 3. As much as I want this game, I'm not willing to put up with the Digital rights management gimmick that Blizzard has put on it. The trick is simple: Even if you're playing a single player game, you have to be on the internet and signed into a Blizzard server account. So if the Blizzard servers crash, your game goes kaput, and you have to wait till they get their shit together just to play your game.
Screw that.
 I didn't need to be online just to play by myself for the last two games, and I see no reason that I need to be online for this one either. I'll put up with a product key and a one-time online authenticity check. Not to mention that Blizzard could be leading the way for a whole new level of DRM for games that really does nothing more then screw over the people who just want to play the game.
It seems really unfair, because shouldn't their focus be putting out the best they can, rather then worrying about how much money they might lose?
 Blizzard's not hurting for cash, and their stuff is worth buying. And I'm willing to pay. But not with the current DRM. All it's is going to do is make certain people just work harder to get around the DRM, and they're alienating people who want to play Diablo 3 like me but can't or won't put up with the bullshit DRM.  

Time: The Ultimate Bastard

    When it was finally made clear that I could go on the internet, post my many adjective filled thoughts, and get some interest, I had to figure out where to start. I could have started with my workplace. I could have started with my views of government. I could have started with a blistering rant about religious fundamentalists.
  But I didn't. Not that I won't get to these subjects, and many more, but I'm a bit burned out on my usuals. I'm getting old. Not really old in the whole scheme of things, but i'll be turning 30 this year. so I figured that I would address how that particular fact is bugging me a bit lately.
  I'm not afraid of getting old. When I say old, I mean that point in your life when your exhausted body is ready to give it up. On the contrary, I look forward to my senior years. But my problem with getting old is that I still feel like a kid, and it's creating a conflict of interest. Mostly with the people around me.
  The fact that I still feel like a kid is pretty evident to just about anyone who spends any amount of time around me. I know that it bothers many people that I still embody some childish behaviors, and to those I will tell cheerily how little of a overweight rodent's rump I care. I've also been known to tell these fine individuals to color me nine different shades of not giving a f**k.       
  But I digress. I still remember being a kid. I still remember how shiny and new the world seemed. I still remember how I knew exactly the path my life would take, and how impossibly far away being a grown-up seemed. And although I am an adult now, I still feel more like that kid then whatever the idea of being a grown-up is. Is it a bad thing? Not really, and even if it was, it's not something I have control over.
 The problem is, that as I grew older, the world became more cruel and unfair, and I couldn't stop it. Time marches on, and it doesn't care that it relentlessly crushes us under it's heel as it does. I had to witness some of the kids I grew up with become rotten adults, and I still struggle with the fact that most of the kids I went to school with have children of their own. I have watched the world change from that comforting bubble it was in my youth to a giant confusion that seems so much worse then I ever could believe. It's hard to want to be a part of it, because it's done little to impress me since I hit puberty.
 It's funny when an 18 year old I work with wants to quit his job because "he doesn't want to waste his life.". How the hell would he know what was a waste and what wasn't? He could be shooting himself in the foot for all he knows. That's an unfair thing for us humans, because you can't go back and change what you did, and you almost never know if or how exactly you're supposedly wasting it until after it's already happened.
 My girlfriend frets that she's wasting the time she has, and has gotten ticked more then once about how little I seem concerned. But the truth to me is that I know that if you worry about wasting time, it's a waste of time in itself. I could drop dead any time, for any number of reasons and I wouldn't have time for regrets. I know she means that she's worried that she's wasting the potential for a fulfilling and personally satisfying string of experiences to look back on in retrospective. Sometimes I do too, but I try my best not to worry about things I feel I have little to no control over. I tend to the view of that if I'm enjoying my life in some way, however small, it's not a complete loss.
  And the truth is, she makes me really damn happy. I never thought I'd ever meet a women that still makes me feel like being a romantic boob even after almost a year of living with each other. And the funny thing is, is that if I hadn't had that inner kid to get get me through the bad bits of my life, and the adult part of me to learn from those experiences, I don't believe I would have been able to realize how lucky I was to have met her, and not have accidentally blown off this lucky break.
 So yes, time is the ultimate bastard, but really if we could go back and change things, we'd die of old age still trying to get high school just right. But still, completely letting go of that inner kid is dumb. You can't enjoy life when EVERYTHING has to be serious, and eventually it will break your spirit. I'm a firm believer that when you have kids, you can't be a kid anymore. But it's a fine line. Because if you're too much of a kid, you're going to really care more about what you want then their needs no matter what you say(they have a show on mtv that shows this point perfectly), but if you are nothing but an adult, how can you identify with them and be the best parent for them if you let go of the part that can block out all the soul crushing responsibility so you can hear their tune? 
  Now, please excuse me. There's some teens blaring some noise that passes for music, their pants are hanging off their asses and I have to tell them how much better things were in my time...Oh wait, I didn't have to be a senior citizen to already know that. But I'm going to get in my best verbal tirades before my brain goes to mush.
  Then the real fun can start.