So one of my second graders comes up to me and wants to show me the cartoons he’s drawn. I look at the one pictured (at that time it had no beard) and say “hey that one looks familiar

who is that?” I thought that it was based on a cartoon character I had not been exposed to yet… he just about floored me when he said… “That’s YOU!” Then he squinted his eyes looked at me critically and declared… “I forgot your beard!” and ran off to add that final touch… there you have it folks… Me.

So from oldest to newest…

Just For Kicks (JFK=Jesse Forest Kiefer=Just For Kicks… eh?!)

My previous comic about two brothers who are thrust into the role of running a martial arts school. This strip was one part autobiographic one part absolute fiction. I’m not sure I’m ready to admit that I’m done with this comic but I’m at the very least definitely on a hiatus from updating it.. I am in the process of moving the whole thing over to my hosting.

If you have time to read through the archives you’ll find that Rex and Tank-Monkey have some distinct similarities. It’s about martial artists but I don’t think you have to be a martial artist to enjoy it as it’s more about the weird people that martial artists tend to be, than the physical practice of martial arts.

Meridian 59 (Online video game themed comics)

I started drawing comics for an online forum connected to a video game that my brother Louie and I were absolutely obsessed with many years ago. (Long before World of Warcraft) I have had a lot of fun doing these and the stalwart fans of this game even went to PAX two years ago and asked me to create some banners and signage for their booth.

Cozy Couples/Better Get Cozy

One of those projects that I never see coming can often turn into a long term gig… Better Get Cozy is one of those. Better Get Cozy is the once a month comic that I do for the Blog/online magazine Cozy Couples. I also draw illustrations from time to time for the other articles when they are needed and write the occasional article or movie review. That’s what I have for now, I’ve added Better Get Cozy and Just for Kicks into the Page Links of this page in case you get a hankering for some of my other projects.

Seriously CNN? Seriously?… slow news day?

I followed this up by reading the first issue of Uncanny X-men, this wasn’t AS enthralling as “All New” was but they still manage to do some very cool things with the book. The end of the first issue is pretty much a jaw dropper. And the art although sometimes distracting IS awesome, it has a very fun street art approach. The art helps to sell the idea that Scott Summers is behind this underground resistance movement.

Apparently I wasn’t sated because I tracked down Cable and X-Force I haven’t been the biggest fan of Cable in the past but in the light of Avengers vs X-men this book is giving some characters some face time that needed to be in one of the books. I don’t know why this book held me the characters aren’t what I’d call overly big draws… Colossus is probably the biggest name Character outside of Cable himself but that’s good enough. I was always a Forge fan so to see him on a proper team again is good fun for me. I am curious to see where this is all going. I may even track down X-men Legacy after this… I’ve been really pleasantly surprised by this run of X-men titles!
Batman #17  is now infamous for a lot of folks… after some time to process it and some good discussions I think that because it was disappointing because the writing was so good that we wanted it to go on and on and on. Inevitably the arc had to end. I think that what we got in an ending to this arc was as satisfying an end as we were likely to get and still be happy with. There was a lot of hype surrounding this issue and despite what a lot of people might be saying… the tension was palpable and there were some awesome “oh my god, did he really?!” moments. Still worth a read even if it’s not the traumatic issue everyone was bracing themselves for.

I started thinking about this before but it really hit home when my wife declared to me from the other room that “Hey! Did you know they are going to make a Fantastic Four Reboot?” It happened when I heard the news about the new spiderman movie… I felt it again when I saw the obviously reboot telling of Superman’s boyhood when I watched a trailer for Man of Steel. I felt a repulsion… (not a cool one like Tony Starks repulsors either…) “reboots” just about send a shiver of bile up my throat anymore.  Not because they are all bad either… I mean I eventually saw “The Amazing Spider-man” and really, I didn’t hate it as much as I hoped I would… Who didn’t like Batman Begins? (And if you didn’t?  Well you wouldn’t have had The Dark Knight without it…) So I think reboots aren’t always bad movies… I didn’t think we should see a reboot of “Hulk…” but I actually do prefer “The Incredible Hulk” to its predecessor. So… for the record, the movies themselves can often be a good idea… but… here’s the problem as I see it… if we keep throwing it out every five years? What are we going to end up with here?…

Listen… I’m going to be 35 in March… and I’ve already seen two versions of Batman… three if you count the Adam West Movie… I’ve seen them do a soft reboot on the X-men, I’ve seen at least two versions of the Hulk, three if you think that the Hulk in “Avengers” was a reboot, and four if you include the made for TV movies with Bixby… See where I’m going with this? Now I’ll even grant that recasts have to happen… but… do we always have to start over? Why do I have to see a retelling of the origin every 10 years? That doesn’t make any sense… When I look on IMDB when I’m 60… will I find 8 Spider-man movies where half of them retread the origin story? Will I see 9 Superman movies with 3 reboots?

Now let me tell you about the best re-intro movie that I’ve seen in a good long time. Dredd. Why? What was so awesome about it?! It was a good story. Plain and simple… and maybe this only works with Dredd… but we don’t worry so much about origins in it. We get a quick narration over the beginning of the movie to explain the setting and we meet Dredd as the action unfolds.  The movie is not bogged down in another way to explain how and why a spider bite turns Peter Parker into Spider-man. In fact, the story could have been any futuristic cop story it didn’t have to be Dredd, but the fact that it was… made it that much cooler.

So stop telling us how it started… get on with it. The Avengers was a good movie whether you saw all the individual Marvel Character movies or not! It didn’t matter that we may not know all of the backstory… the audience was smart enough to get over the fact that there might be gaps and they enjoyed it anyhow.  That is… if you spend the time to tell a good story then you won’t need to bog us down in needing to know all of that back-story.

While I agree… we NEED a better Doctor Doom… I don’t know if retelling the story is the best answer. If I had any say in a new Fantastic Four Movie? I’d start in a world that already has the Fantastic Four… where they are in the midst of a ticker tape parade style celebrity moment and the action hits… the plot starts and we figure things out along the way… and  if we needed to go into the origin AGAIN?… I’d prefer to reveal the origin story quickly… via flash back.

I think that’s where “All New X-men” (a Marvel Comic Book Title that has brought the original first class of X-men into the present to meet themselves in what seems to be a drastically changed reality)  is likely doing it right… they have decades of material… they couldn’t possibly get that all in… so you have to give us the cliff notes version and reveal a little more as time goes along. Good storytelling doesn’t necessarily show us the entire plot at the beginning anyhow. I mean… unless you WANT these movies to remain predictable and formulaic… ME? I’m ready for new stories… not the ones I’ve already seen. (unless you want to Reboot Reboot… cuz that would just be funny)

So What I’m Reading:

I tore through Uncanny Avengers 1-3 and… I really like where this is going… it… kinda feels more like an X-men book right now though. Which is perfectly fine, I like X-men… but it’s billed like an Avengers book and I feel like Thor and Cap are getting seriously downplayed until the action. The driving focus of the book thus far has been on the Mutants heroes. The promise of a book like this was supposed to be the MESHING of some avengers staples with some X-Men staples so I hope this evolves a little. Minor quibble aside? I TORE through em so I musta liked em. (really good introspective moments from Wolverine) Not sure if I like this new Red Skull slant… but the jury’s still out. It’s interesting whether I like it or not.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 15-16 Surprised to see a character that came along much later in the animated series SLASH, the “evil” Ninja Turtle. It’s like they took the treatment of Toka in the second Ninja Turtles movie… made him fully grown hunter, gave him a dash of brainwashing, and slapped a black mask on him. He does seem more animalistic and dangerous. Fun… I see the next couple will feature Krang. Curious to see how the reboot is gonna handle him as we develop even further. Been digging this reboot. Donnie in particular is much more agressive… his intelligence now makes him much more frustrated with his brothers when they react based on faith or emotion. Mikey is fun loving but exhibits maybe the most compassion and heart out of the group. Leo is Leo but his absolute faith in Splinter’s teaching along with his discipline makes him holy cow more cool than I ever remember thinking about Leo. And Raph? I don’t wanna say he’s what you’d expect… but yeah… he’s the wolverine of the group… you get what you expect. Not that that’s bad… cuz it’s not.

Transformers: Regeneration One  #85-87 Wow, these books are WAY expansive… for starters? Most take place on at least 3 different planets. It all kinda ties back to Cybertron just as you might expect but… The Earth Saga held some of the biggest surprises and Scorponok unlocks the key Cybertron Genetics? He can turn the key that makes you more apt to be an autobot or a decepticon? Holy cow! What I considered a mild mannered autobot being morphed into something sinister that reminded me of Starscream in his prime? Yeah… I’m ready for another issue asap!

Conclusion: I’m really happy with these titles, I’ve enjoyed them… I wouldn’t recommend them to everyone. Uncanny Avengers has the best mass market appeal. But I’m not bored by any one of them. If I’m bored… then they tend to stay in the backlog pile. These 3 titles did not and I am pretty much up to date on them now. That’s a weird feeling, but not a bad one.