Come on guys...

Have you ever gone through a several courses meal only to get to the dessert? You just sit there eating your food, but all you’re really expecting is that nice Tiramisu coming at the end… It happens also when watching movies or reading books… You just glide along with the story, which is good enough to keep you interested but is nothing comparable to the final moments that make you go "Oh sh!t… Never saw it coming!"

I’ve experienced that at several occasions… I think the very first time must have been when watching the end of Pulp Fiction, when I finally got to put all the small bits together, and always will think Tarantino was brilliant…

I’ve also experienced that feeling when reading Watchmen and a couple of Batman stories as well, and to tell the truth, I was expecting the same thing when reading the 10th and last Y the last man’s trade paperback. While it sure was entertaining, I kind of was left hanging there revelation-wise… I thought I was going to get that big one that explained everything that happened in the previous 49 issues I had read but I did not. I thought there was going to be something that would have thrown me off balance and go “Those guys really played me all along!” but instead I got more of a “So they DID leave that unexplained…”. It’s like several parties claim they made it happen, but in the end, it’s still left up to you to decide… So yeah, I still do not know why all the men on Earth got wiped… *sigh*

“What would our world be like without women?”

Try to ask this question to your male friends and colleagues. I have and most of them replied something like “The world would be quite sad” and those who answered it would be Heaven were only joking. It’s got to be something with the affection we have for our mothers or something…

Now trying inverting the roles and ask your women friends/colleagues what they think the world would be like without men. I usually get the complete opposite response. Most of them think if men went instinct, it would be the end of war, violence, sexual abuse, machismo and the beginning of a new era, and a BETTER one.

Of course, as a guy, these comments kind of hurt my ego a bit… I asked the reason why they thought we were the “scum of the Earth” and they told me something like “Men have ruled this world since the beginning of times and look where we are now”. I can’t really agree or disagree with that. The world is what it is, and it sure isn’t perfect… So I agree it could be better, but it also could be much worse.

If all the men went instinct right this instant, just think about how tough it would be for all the mothers on this planet. You can tell me all you want about how better women are at raising kids, and mine was wonderful, but you’ll never convince me they’re better off alone with their kids… You can point a gun at your kid’s head and threaten to shoot him point blank if he doesn’t stop messing around and annoying you; it still won’t be as powerful a weapon as “I’m going to tell your dad!”

Anyway, we all have our visions of how the world could be if… And Y the last man does a good job at showing how a post-wipe-of-all-men world would be. Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra took me around it flawlessly so far. The characters travelled across countries and oceans where women faced this “plague” in many different ways. Everywhere the main team of this story stopped, they would meet new characters that would depict very well how different people, in different places with different personalities and cultures could make something out of this situation… Sometimes good and sometimes not.

I’ve followed Yorick Brown and his buddies for 9 volumes right now and am about to start reading the final 10th book. They’re all on a quest to save the world right now and seem to be close to finding a solution… But more than that, I’m really excited to know what actually caused this disaster. They’ve been several theories developed throughout the 9 books I’ve read so far, but I’ve got a gut feeling that the real reason will be something completely surprising that nobody could expect. Let’s see how this all pan out!

Thank you note

Good day all. It’s been a while since I’ve last written anything here. I’ve been quite busy leveling my tank to 80 (which I haven’t reached yet), reading Y The last man and dealing with other unplanned and unpleasant events IRL.

So anyway, I just wanted to thank the 2 guys that actually read my blog at least once… I’ve received a nice email from Mycomicshop.com yesterday informing that I earned USD30 from referred orders. It’s funny, I know it’s only USD30 but I feel quite fulfilled that my little efforts to help fellow comics’ readers somehow got rewarded… Just when I started thinking this affiliate program thing wasn’t working! Maybe I should start posting their promotions here again, especially there’s a good one going on right now…

So thank you both for your contributions, I hope you enjoyed Mycomicshop.com prices and services and had a nice time reading the books you picked.

Web comics?

Up to now, I’m not what you could call a web comic super fan. I always liked to feel the book in my hands for some reason. But lately I’ve been checking some of them and it seems there’s a couple of nice ones worth looking at.

The first one is Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield’s FreakAngels. It seems quite interesting, and I guess popular as well as they’re getting the first volume printed out to sell in stores.

The second one is Goats by Jon Rosenberg. It just got featured over at Comic Book Resources as one of the web comics to watch… So I’ll give it a try as well.

The point is there seems to be some nice material published on the web right now. It’s easily accessible and free of charge so those of you who don’t have access to a real store or are getting delivery troubles where you live, it’s a good alternative.

Done with Batman: Hush,Y the last man here I come

I’ve finally turned the last page of the second volume of Batman: Hush. I’ve finally got to know who Hush really is… And I was right with my first guess at the beginning of the book. I always find it funny how Jeph Loeb manages to screw your head up with his story telling. There’s always something happening that will make you believe you got the wrong guy (of course, that depends if you pick the real culprit in the first place), but later in the story, he reveals a tiny detail you didn’t think of at the time, which makes you say “Damn! I should’ve thought of this!” because you knew he was going to try messing up your head… I fell for it when reading The Long Halloween and fell for it again this time, even I was expecting it. That’s what makes these books so good; you get caught up without noticing it.

I really start liking Jeph Loeb’s work, it’s the fourth book he wrote I have read and would like to read some more… They were both Batman stories though, so I wonder if his style would match other characters too. He’s written different titles for Superman, Daredevil, Spider-man, X-Men, or even Hulk… Most of the top names at DC and Marvel actually, so I might pick up one of those sometime soon just to try it out.

And as you may have guessed from the title, I’ve started reading Y the last man yesterday. This title had very good reviews and some people even mentioned it was one of the top stories in the last decade, so it really got me pumped up and eager to read it… I’ve got the complete story spread around in 10 trade paperbacks… I first thought it was going to take a while to read them all, but I managed to read the first volume in one sitting. I hope I can start the second one tonight and keep up the good pace so as to reach the end sometime around Chinese New Year… My first impressions are quite good so it should be easy to do IF I find the time to read.

So far the story is only beginning as the plot was only getting set up so I don’t have much to talk about, but for the curious ones out there, the first volume goes like this… All the men… No, scratch that… All the mammals with a Y chromosome die, at the exception of Yorick Brown (the main character) and his monkey Ampersand… So here they are, the last man and male monkey on earth, sent by the U.S. government on a crusade to find a cure to this “plague” and repopulate the planet (with males). Of course nothing comes easy, a lot of people (well… women actually) are now aware there is STILL one man alive and they’re coming after him in this Mad Max kind of era… I’m mentioning Mad Max here as this is the first reference that came to my mind when noticing that, after all men (except Yorick) went instinct, people started using gasoline and food instead of money to trade goods.

That’s just a quick summary of what happens, there’s a lot more going on and I suggest you pick up the book if you’re appealed by this kind of stories.

Wanna read X-MEN comics?

Happy New Year everybody... Wish you all the good things you'd ever dreamt of for 2009... And if one of them was to start reading (or catching up) with X-Men comics, I thought I'd share a link (actually 2 links) with you that seems interesting. Greg Hatcher over at Comic Should Be Good published some letters between himself and one of his former students who's asking questions in order to better understand what is going on in the X-Men world as she is reading them (from the start it seems). Check out the first post here, and the follow up post here. It should be interesting if, as I said earlier, you're planning on reading X-Men anytime this year.
Hope you enjoy it.

More Batman readings

I haven’t been posting here for a while as I was pretty occupied taking care of my son and wife during the holidays. I have however had some time to go on reading some books, and all of them were Batman stories…

First in line was Batman: Anarky trade paperback that collects Detective Comics #608-609, Batman Chronicles (1995-2000) #1, Batman: Shadow of the Bat (1992-2000) 40-41, and Anarky (1997 1st Series) #1-4 all written by Alan Grant. I had no idea who Anarky was at first, but it was a Batman story with Alan Grant in the mix so it couldn’t possibly turn out to be too bad. And I think that’s exactly how I felt when reading it: “Not too bad”. It did not really thrill me to read it, Anarky is an OK character between a hero (or a “vigilante” as he says in the book) and a villain who’s trying to save humanity by doing not-so-legal things that put him on Batman’s blacklist. The art was just horrible in the first story but it got better as I read on, without being astounding… So yeah… “Not too bad” is what fits best when talking about that book in my opinion.

The second trade paperback I read was Batman: Gothic. I was a bit disappointed by the art at first… I found it was too “fuzzy” like when there’s too much noise when watching TV (the kind of noise that makes the image sloppy) but when reading I found it matched the story pretty nicely and wasn’t bothered by it. I found the story interesting as it unveils a part of Bruce Wayne’s childhood, and the outcome was quite unexpected but I was a bit disappointed by it… Ends up like one of those Japanese animation series where they seem to have used up their entire budget and only have enough money to produce ONE episode. So of course everything gets mashed up and it leaves a lot to be desired… So that’s a bit how I felt, the whole story is a crescendo but it’s concluded in 1 page so it leaves a “So that’s it?” impression. But besides that the story was good and pretty creative too and I think it stands out a bit thanks to its originality.

Last but not least is Batman: Hush vol.1 & 2. I’ve finished reading the first volume and am half way through the second one, and damn that’s a good book. Jeph Loeb is the writer (remember A Long Halloween?) and artist is not Tim Sale this time but Jim Lee. Let me tell you the combination is great! The story’s good, the art and colouring are impeccable, plus you get to see Batman kicking some Metropolitan’s ass which doesn’t spoil anything. Really worth the time and money spent…