Shout out to Johnny Hotsauce for bringing this to my attention! I don’t usually watch the late night talk show things. But I’m going to make an exception. It appears that one of my Lords and Saviours shall be appearing on Seth Meyers’s Late Night.

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Spending Friday evening on Twitter like a true Beast of Dorkey and I came across this Matt Fraction tweet. I’m hoping  he’s serious, since Casanova makes my tits hard like nobody’s business. Who knows though? Dude is generally hilarious and off-the-cuff. Could be a total feint. Fraction is one of my favorite writers, and if I got to see him open up that unique mind of his across another self-generated universe in addition to Casa it would be too good to be true.

Welcome to the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE! This is the feature I use as an excuse to showcase the various debris that’ll be keeping my brain-bone lubricated so as to avoid jamming up at the hands of the workweek. Some Mondays, I write a little story beforehand as a creative writing exercise and preface the post with it. On other Mondays, I start the post by jotting down an amusing anecdote

And then there’re those Mondays when I’m so tired that my eyes are burning and I don’t have any goddamn coffee filters so kickstarting my creativity with a caffeine-defibrillator isn’t an option and all I want to do is pass out and wake up in 2013 so that I can laugh at all those fucking doomsayers and tell them that their apocalypse wasn’t even worth being awake for.

Guess what kind of Monday today is.

Quit’yer dinkin’ around, let’s do this.

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[images & words is the comic book pick-of-the-week at OL. equal parts review and diatribe, the post highlights the most memorable/infuriating/entertaining book released that wednesday]

I thought I was just reading a comic. You know, sitting and checking out some paneled narrative. But then it happened. I got to the end of the issue and my heart was beating and sweat was dripping from my brow. I grasped my bosom and shrieked delight.

Casanova mindfucked me. And it was glorious.

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And a thousand thunders uttered, welcome to Variant Covers! Your hostel, your refuge from intelligent comic book talk. No sir, here at Variant Covers I pledge to inundate your unsuspecting brainstem with talk of superheroes, superpowers, and super fanboy-boners over things that are exciting me this current week in comic books. Don’t say I didn’t never warn you, ya’lll!

This week is chock full of fucking righteous comic book dalliances awaiting all of my kindred spirits. The sort of week that makes up for every installment of my blathering here which sounds like “Oh golly gee whiz, ain’t nothing droppin’ whine whine whine blah blah.”

Buckle up, I got a chubby for panels and pencils and dialogue boxes this week.

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Casanova #1
If you spend any amount of time loitering within the halls of Variant Covers, you know that one of my most revered writers is Matt Fraction. I think his ability to manipulate serious political issues within the realms of robot suits and billionaire playboys is amazing. In my more fanboyish moments, I am certain he’s doing something special with Tony Stark during a period in which the character’s popularity is unfathomably enormous. Pick up Invincible Iron Man, and you’re getting all the big budget theatrics of the movies interfacing with all the sort of culturally aware political commentary that you wouldn’t expect.

This week, Fraction’s getting his original work, Casanova, reprinted through Marvel’s Icon line. If you didn’t check out Casanova, you’re not alone. Penned back in 2006, it was where Fraction cut his teeth, and was to my understanding, not widely printed. I also understand nothing, so I could be completely incorrect. Whatever! Fraction takes you on a journey with intergalactic superspy Casanova Quinn, and it is absolutely insane. I’ve gotten to read the first couple of issues, and it really rocks out like nothing in Fraction’s Marvel catalog.

The series is getting reprinted in two four-issue arcs and in full color for the first time, and then Fraction is going to tackle the third volume of the series. I’m looking forward to it; it’ll be intriguing to see embryonic Fraction, fumbling through his first moments in comic book crafting. It’s a bit gushy, but the guy is extremely well-spoken, and beyond talented, and this is going to dominate my reading tomorrow.

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Batman: Odyssey #1
This week, we be getting the first issue of Neal Adam’s extravaganza. Adams has been instrumental in crafting the god damn Batman that we’ve come to know and love. His work in the 1970’s, were the “eggs [he] laid all those years ago” that have resulted in what “Batman has finally become”. Adams has returned to the Flying Rodent to examine the “now what” of Batman in this day and age. This meditation is arriving in the form of a six-issue extravaganza, and the man himself will be writing and drawing the entire storyline, as well as inking the first two issues.

I’m stoked.

Whether or not you’ve read Adam’s work on Batman, you’ve felt the repercussions if you’ve dallied in the world of Bruce Wayne. For someone who helped sculpt the character to return and give us a new storyline is pretty stellar. Frank Miller tried to do that with All-Star Batman and Robin, but I have a better chance of actually graduating from my Master’s Degree and entering the real world before it actually wraps up. So I’m going to have to cling Adams to deliver me some interesting new spins by someone who delivered a seminal work.

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