Vigilant, Bold... Ridiculous

Being comic book day gets bumped to Thursday for Labor Day shipment, seemed like as good a day as any to camp out at Trilogy and wait for what I was hoping to see on the shelf -- Love And Rockets: New Stories No. 1 which Amazon says isn't out yet but Trilogy says on their web site was coming out today. There are few things I'll wait around for on street date day, and I'll be waiting by the door like a child at Barnes & Noble hunkering down for that last Harry Potter novel -- and me dressed like Penny Century in one of her homemade wannabe superhero costumes (tits aside, it's hardly likely I'd ever be mistaken for her). Alas, me in my shorts and my Screeching Weasel T-shirt got awful tired of listening to the guys sloooooowly counting each and every new title before putting them up on the shelf (or letting us eager beaver customers root through the delivery boxes) and meandered off to Home Depot (or as Joe likes to call them Home Despot) and bought a new toilet seat for the upstairs bathroom, seeing as how I'm durn sick 'n tired of my butt wiggling around on that one loose bolt. And I got to look at all the nifty tools. I have always loved tools. I just wish I knew what to do with them. Not very mechanically inclined, yet drawn to the aesthetics of these cool, heavy instruments in my hands, my knowledge of tools is reduced to little more than "Wow, that's a real boss-lookin' wrench! I wonder what it's used for?" Okay maybe I'm not that bad but it gives you fair warning that I shouldn't be the one you call to come over and help install you brand spankin' new toilet seat for you. Ahh, homeownership. (haven't I sighed that one before?)

And I slaughtered some more time moseying around a local thrift store, which I haven't done in quite some time, rabid thrifter that I once was before I put a cap on buying any more vintage toys. Nothing about buying secondhand books (although that cap shoulda been in place years ago) and as I was perusing the paperback spines I was amazed to see what truly horrible tastes the average citizen has in literature these days. Honestly, who keeps Danielle Steele in business enough to have almost an entire rack dedicated to her works? Then again I have no room to be uppity, since my cousin was V.C. Andrews -- yes, I would like to emphasize was, because she's been dead for over twenty years. Aaaaaand yet miraculously, she seems to put out a new book every year. Actually it might be some dude writing under her name now, I don't now and haven't kept up. But I have read her books, back when I was a kid, up to when she passed away, so I guess I'm as much as an enabler as anybody else. At least I'm keeping it all in the family!

FINALLY, back at the ole comic book shack, Gerry took pity on my pitifully devoted ass and let me plow through the delivery boxes to uproot... (squee) Love And Rockets: New Stories No. 1! Having been oddly concerned that nothing new had come out by Los Bros. Hernandez since I reviewed their anniversary issue almost a year ago it's a wonder and a relief to be able to finally see what the hermanos have been up to since last fall. A few wonderfully written and illustrated surrealistic shorts from Gilbert, including a story written

by other brother contributor Mario. And Jaime brings La Locas back with Maggie and one of my new favorite characters Angel, along with secret superhero neighbor Alarma and a few intrepid ladies from the series past that come together to try and capture the always daffy Penny Century, who has finally achieved her lifelong dream of becoming a true superhero. But the always-on-the-cusp-of-insanity Penny is finally out of her mind, and her powers make her nearly unstoppable. Angel and Alarma have a great dynamic with each other, and as always drawn with a certain man's relish for the more, ah, corpulent female form. And this woman here who adores it as well. If anything could have cheered me up from this week, getting this in my greedy mitts sooner than expected has very few other contenders at this moment (although there are some others!)

And I was pretty sure that Dave Sim's Glamourpuss #2 would have been sold out a few weeks ago when it was released, but I haven't had time to hit up Trilogy for it until today. And I already have issue #1 so I kind of have a feeling that this issue will be more of the same -- Sim pretty much thinking out loud as he studies the great photorealist cartoonist legend Alex Raymond and applying his intricate style to satirizing the women's fashion industry, with hilarious little asides "written" by our hero Glamourpuss (and at times

her evil twin sister, Skanko), attempting the occasional deep thought while posing in her Prada frock with matching silk shoes, worrying her Chanel handbag with her well-manicured fingers while gazing up at the afternoon sun in her Michael Kors sunglasses. Fantastically rendered, all of it, and makes me appreciate photorealism in a way that I never had before. Shows how much I was a child of the 70's, dominated by Neal Adams-styled exaggerated realism-based art (everything from Conan The Barbarian to Howard The Duck) and being more influenced by that style than anything that came before it. It's been an intriguing pleasure to explore comic history with Sim's distinct take of humor breaking up the pedagogy.

Speaking of other (now former) Aardvark-Vanaheim publications, it's been an unforgivable crime on my part to have never owned any Flaming Carrot. I remember S. had several issues years ago and I used to read hers constantly, but never actually got around to buying some for myself. What the hey. The situation was rectified immediately picking up Volume 6 of Bob Burden's wacky, utterly hilarious surrealistic superhero series (Burden was also the creator of

The Mystery Men, which was later made into a film starring Ben Stiller). Flaming Carrot doesn't have any real superpowers. He wears a carrot for a mask with a flame at the crown, shoots a baloney bazooka, and wears rubber flippers on his feet, in case he ever has to swim. Maaaan, this comic brings me back. Back when I lived in Ghent and and walked to Skinnie's every week or so to see Jeff (when he was still alive, natch) and check out what he brought into the store as far as comix were concerned. He always seemed to keep some Flaming Carrot in stock, and yet when it came to plopping down my cash for an issue of that or whatever punk 7" came in with the same shipment I usually knew where my priorities lie. But things change. Luckily, the Flaming Carrot never does.

And I suppose I should also mention picking up the latest ish of season eight of Buffy The Vampire Slayer #18, part three of the "Time Of Your Life" episode where Willow revisits her snake-lady lover, Dawn still appears to be a centaur, Xander's still working on not being the Zeppo of the gang, and Buffy is still in the far-flung future where she runs into Fray, the one and only slayer left in future Manhattan ("Haddyn") as well as another spin-off series of Joss Whedon's Buffyverse. Buffy seems to have been brought into this future dystopia by a "madwoman", which appears to be Willow once again all eviled-out and apparently lookin' pretty good for being a couple centuries old. But until Buffy discovers this for herself, we get

to see her maneuvering wily floating space cars as well as the language, a form of shorthand slang where vampires are known as "lurks", and the Haddyn hoards are run by Fray's own beloved twin brother, who was turned into a lurk himself but still retains all of Fray's slayer memories and past knowledge. It's been a pretty fun episode so far, although the art this time is a little too freaky-funhouse distorted at times, which seems to be the trend in over the last several episodes. The episode is making me think about getting the Fray comic book, which I've held back on for some awhile, not really feeling I had the time to dedicate to another whole series. Technically and financially I probably still don't. But if I get a new job in the next few weeks we'll see how all that changes.

Tomorrow's my brother's birthday. Guess I need to find some old newspaper to wrap his Nightmare Before Christmas DVD that I got for him.