1/12/2005

Oh let's all just laugh at some zesty knee slappers ok?

*A quote to end your day with:

"If you think I’m going to stay in Dirty Tonio’s Flophouse forty miles away from the convention just for the pleasure of being snotted on by eighty thousand comics fans all wearing HAWKEYE IS JESUS and ARSERAPE = SUPERHERO GOLD t-shirts, you’re fucking insane."

Warren Ellis, presenting his rationale for not attending the 2005 San Diego Comics Detonation Cluster Deluxe.

*Maybe it's just how tired I am right now, but I can't stop smirking over this Phoebe Gloeckner piece, which has already been linked to a bunch of times (Dave Fiore, Tom Spurgeon), and was first spotted on this five-star thread at the Comics Journal board, but one more link can't hurt a bit.

The Punisher MAX #16

Wow, Garth Ennis had really figured out what I want from my Punisher comics. He knows that it's not enough to simply have Frank and some zero survival expectation combat partner trapped in a nuclear missile silo with a doomsday virus while terrorists careen toward their location in a hijacked jet. No, the scene is not fully set until a stocky Russian soldier rappels down to Frank's location wearing a giant backpack; he's shot down (to join the estimated one half of the armed forces of Eastern Europe that must be heaped there by this point), but out of his backpack pops a half-naked martial arts master. Now you are asking "Oh my gosh, might he and Frank engage in a kung-fu duel over the safety of a little child?" Yes my friend. We are blessed in that they do.

The humor never really left this book after it dropped the Marvel Knights banner, it just became darker and a bit more deadpan. Now instead of popping polar bears in the snout, Frank agrees to run outside to fetch a little girl ice cream, a pile of fallen foes stacked up in the foreground. Where once we had Wolverine getting crushed by a steamroller (unless I'm confusing that with something else), we now get a quick riff on airline pilots packing guns in the cockpit. Did I mention the world's most gratuitous Nick Fury cameo, where he pops in for two pages to remind us about how badass Frank is before dropping yet another mention of his taste for prostitutes (Ennis must have a bet going with someone)? Oh Garth, you make the guilty pleasures sing, and when "The Punisher" is good, the world is just a little better.

Man, we've got prisoners and a mean Soviet-style military man. I hope there's a big interrogation scene next issue I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope!!!