Taylor Sheridan’s movies are consistently fucking enjoyable. I mean, they oscillate between absolute fucking classic (Sicario, which he wrote) and enjoyably miserable affair (Wind River which he wrote and directed). So, throw some fucking Chris Pratt into mix? Hell yes.

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I don’t know the comic series Bloodshot. But I do know that the directors of John Wick are fucking rad. So I’m going to see pretty much any action movie they’re directing. I just hope this development doesn’t take them off the Cowboy Ninja Viking movie they were attached to.

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Nick Spencer and Riley Rossmo are teaming up for Bedlam, and here be a preview for our asses. I’d snag this thing just for Rossmo’s artwork, seeing that his efforts on Cowboy Ninja Viking were some of my favorite in years. In addition, it doesn’t hurt that I’ve dug what I’ve come across from Spencer.

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Welcome friends to the place for fans of the sequential art, thrice-engorged breasts, and monologuing. This here column is the watering hole where you can share the funny rags you’re snagging on a given week. The hole itself is Mountain Dew laced with hallucinogens, so right about the time all our faces become gaping maw anuses rocketing lasers into the night sky, begin screaming your choices while running into the wilderness.

You may notice that my choices are indubitably not yours, and that’s cool. Use it as an opportunity to recommend the hotness that no one else is mentioning, or perhaps has not heard of. If you don’t know what’s what titles are arriving this week, hit up Comic List.

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Ride me with! We have ourselves a rootin’ tootin’ motherfucking pull list to spit about. This is Variant Covers, the weekly column where us of the nerd predilection spout off the comic books we’re snagging tomorrow.

After a hiatus last week in which I graded final exams, wrote my own bullshit papers, and generally wept at the Sky Gods for forging such an unfavorable existence, I’m stoked to be back. There is a good goddamn backlog of comics I haven’t gotten to, and I’m using the semester break to tear gleefully into the ass of my Stack’o’Funnies. I’m coming for you, Detective Comics, Cowboy Ninja Viking Vol. 2, Black Hole, and hopefully others.

But this week, let’s gab about this week.

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Variant Covers. A look at the comic books that I’m buying/interested in this week.

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how crazy I was during the semester. Or maybe you would. White-knuckles, ripped on caffeine. Oscillating between “this is totally doable” and “I need pills and a shack in the woods.” What gets me through it? Funny books. Narrative and drawings. Well, that, and really weird audio files of white noise to write to. With that in mind, writing this column every week is a relaxation technique. Stack it on top of my psychiatrist, therapist, and girlfriend, and I’m almost functional.

Let’s dance.

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Casanova: Gula #2.
The Casanova series is one of those titles that has to benefit from reading in a collected manner. I read this title monthly, and by the time the next issue is coming out, my frazzled stem can’t compute what I read before. The issues are stuffed to the brim with madness. This is a good thing. But trying to keep track of everything that’s going on, with thirty-day breaks? Not so hot.

Let’s see: Last month, Casanova Quinn disappeared from the timestream, and now it’s of grave importance that he’s tracked down. This march into absurdity (I mean this positively) is headed up by Sasa Lisi, a blue babe with a good amount of arms. Meanwhile Cass’ sister has just been hired to kill some peeps, including their father. Gulp and stuff!

Slather this on top of some really weird meta-fiction, endless references to awesome, and gorgeous artwork, and you have madness in a can. Or uh, a binding. It’s enjoyable mind-rape, but goddamn if the side-effect don’t include loss of memory and sudden confusion.

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Incognito: Bad Influences #3.
Zack Overkill has just gotten out of his life of crime. Sure, he was ripped out of it and then thrown into working for The Man, but he was out. Now thrown back into it the underworld he was wrested from, he operate undercover while holding onto his tenuous set of new-found morals. That is, if you believe he’s reformed. My guess? Somewhere in the middle.

Last issue saw Overkill galavanting about with an old buddy, only to have the guy sell him out. Son of a bitch! Apparently you can’t go home again. Even if that home is prostitutes and death scenes.

I love this series, specifically for the themes presented. The notion of attempting to clean yourself up, and what that entails, calls out to the mess that is my collected consciousness. Overkill is a man trying to turn a new leaf, but can he resist the temptation? In this case, can he resist punching motherfuckers’ heads off and banging whores? There’s the axio, that if you want to quit an addiction, you need to gut your entire life. Escape from the hedonistic tendencies of those you partook with. Overkill is doing the exact opposite – being thrown back into the madness.

Can the dude make it? Dunno.

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Interlude: Shit I’m Loving.
This column is a weekly conduit of the bullshit that’s coming out on any given week. As such, while I generally recommend shit that I’m humping on hard, I don’t often pause to drop what I’m infatuated with. An atemporal exploration of the dope shit I want to marry. So I figured I’d throw one out there.

I’m madly, madly obsessed with Cowboy Ninja Viking. The title has it fucking all. The grand slam of tropes and bonerficiations that sell me hard. It’s got mental illness. It’s got ridiculously gorgeous artwork. It’s got meditations on modern life and the existential ennui we all are subject to. It’s got action sequences and ultra violence. But more than that, it’s fucking hilarious.

This is a title that has me giggling outloud in the middle of the night like the retard I am. The dialogue  is equal measures witty and profane. Childish and acerbic.  I’ve rocked through a trade and a half of the title, and I’m edging like woah. Don’t want to finish it. If you haven’t checked this shit out, I’d recommend it. Madly. In love.

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It’s with a tearful eye and a hyper-extended thumbs-up that I bid farewell to 2012.

The last twelve months have been some of the finest of my entire life. And I’m not exaggerating. Unlike those saccharine slobs who always clamor about the present hour being their finest and the preceding moments nothing more than the bliss-steps to their existence plateaus, I have no illusions about the fact that I’ve chalked up some miserable years. I’ve anguished through entire calendars, burnin’ `em up with fuel of the most incendiary sort.

Self-doubt! Resentment! Apathy! Vitriol! Cynicism! Sally forth towards the mire!

But 2012 was a whole different beast. Sure, there definitely some moments when my nostrils were assailed by the wispy vapors of the aforementioned propellants. But repugnance was ultimately cast aside, overpowered by the surfeit of wonder! It’s almost as though entertainment and art and love formed a giant sword-wieldin’, monster-destroyin’ mech, and I got to pilot the son-of-a-bitch!

If only!

Anyways, it looks as though every crew member of Spaceship OL is delivering their year-end highlights, so I’m going to join the party. But since I’ve garnered a reputation as being the erratic, currently-undiagnosed-but-we’re-working-on-it, hack-writin’ resident of the crew, I’m going to switch things up a bit. Each of my highlights will be paired with an Ultra-Dimensional Portal! By clicking on any UDP, a hole will be punched in space-time, and your consciousness will be projected astrally.

Got it? Okay, here’s one last look at 2012!

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Variant Covers, is at its core, a weekly comic book column. Most weeks are like this one, a round-up of the comic books that I am planning to acquire through galactic credits tomorrow at the local Pictures And Words dealer. Other weeks, the status quo is subsumed by a desire to pontificate on a particular topic. Like Peter Parker and his amazing Non-Progress Adventure. All columns are sponsored by a permanent state of juvenility, and made-up words.

Shall we?

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #4
This is my column, and while I maintain a sense of duty in pleasing others and keeping it fresh, I’m going to go ahead and recommend the latest issue of Bruce Wayne and his righteous riding of the Time Waves. I know that I’ve popped off on this mini-series previously, but I’m sorry.

It’s one of my favorite things dropping every month, and I’ll be god damned if I ain’t excited to read it tomorrow. The latest issue finds Sir Wayne of Forevermore riding the time stream into the wild, wild west. Or is it the wild, wild east? After all, it seems that every time that the Island jumps for him, he ends up in Gotham during Period To Be Determined.

I may be reading it completely incorrectly, there’s always the chance of that.

The series is centered around the essence of Bruce Wayne, and how those essential tropes can carry through the millennium. They’re applicable everywhere. The concepts of symbols as power, great sleuthing, and an undying regret towards being unable to save a loved one (in this case it seems ‘ole Anne Elliot) can work while existing in the realm of Cave Dudes just as well as it came amidst the Red Dead Redemption set.

This shit rocks me like a rock star rocks things.

Spin on that, ya’ll.

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