John Buys Comics, Unnamed Edition

I was absolutely positive that I would write an epically spectacular John Buys Comics last night. I'd read everything (for once), it was a good week full of good comics, I had these little cheesy shortbready things to snack upon... conditions were perfect. Then, disaster: my package from Topatoco arrived and I was powerless to resist the allure of Problem Sleuth and theMachine of Death. Curse my ways!

But who can blame me for loving Problem Sleuth (and by extension MSPaint Adventures)? I certainly can't! Why, brilliantly foolish comics and olde schoole adventure/puzzle games are two of my very favourite things and Andrew Hussie blends the two into something delightful. The closest thing to a criticism that I could think to level at the thing is "it's very long." and when you get right down to it, that's more like a bonus feature.

As for the comics that came out this week as opposed to several months ago, it was reminiscent of my Best of 2010 - Action Comics, Generation Lost, The Sixth Gun, Skullkickers - and they were all just as great as usual. Plus, in a callback to the Best of 2009, the trade paperback of the excellent Cursed Pirate Girl came out this week, and let me tell you again: this is one of the most original comics to come out in years, on a couple of levels.

 

The story of a cursed girl who gets swordfighting lessons in her dreams and follows a talking parrot on a fantastical voyage beneath the sea to find her missing pirate father (gasp) is good enough, but Jeremy Bastian's art hearkens back to the sort of intricate line drawing that started cartooning off in the first place, way back in the political cartoons in the 1800s. Except you can actually read the writing in all of the bubbles and rather than being about, say, an obscure bit of Victorian social satire, it's all little girls fighting monster octopi and murderous buccaneers.

Also new this week: Off Road by Sean Murphy!

Okay, not quite new. evidently this first came out in 2005 or so and I missed it completely. This is a shame, as I should have known about Sean Murphy years ago - between this and Joe the Barbarian he has very quickly found a place in my heart. The plot? Three guys (Trent, Brad, Greg) go offroading in Greg's new Jeep, get stuck in a swamp and have a hell of a time getting back out. It is, yes, the classic Dudes Get Into a Sticky Situation and Learn a Lot About Themselves and Each Other story, but it's a very satisfying example of the breed. It's always a joy to find out that someone whose art you dig can also sling a tale, and Murphy has definitely made the list.

Never a Bat Around When You Need One

I'm sure that most of you are familiar with the part of Batman's origin in which he chooses his theme:

It's one of the iconic Batman moments, and even though it's been watered down over the years by such ideas as L'il Bruce Wayne falling down into what would someday become the Batcave and being traumatized by bats, or Thomas Wayne's bat-themed Halloween costume making a subconscious impression on his son, or every ancestor Wayne ever being a chiropterophile (and also all being the same dude, and that dude being him), there's still a rich vein of comedy there that people still occasionally mine. "Hey, what is Batman saw a dog instead of a bat? He'd be Dogman! Hilarious, right? Or if he saw some mail, he'd be Postman!"

The very best thing about this not-always-amazing joke, though, is that it's canonically accurate. DC has used the concept for "What if?" and alternate universe style stories several times over the years. My favourite of these, however, is this two-page bit of filler from Batman No. 256.

I like it best because it suggests a number of very interesting things about Bruce Wayne and his uncompromising hunt for vengeance on crime. Firstly, there is a hint that if he hadn't come up with a costume during WWII he might have to be having some serious talks with some serious men about his habit of dressing like other people's intellectual property. Or maybe there are only so many looks you can give a scorpion-themed outfit, I don't know.

Then there's the implication that Bruce would take his omen/totem beast so very seriously that he would not just dress up like it but stay exactly where he was when he saw it. See a bat? Gotham's streets now have a pointy-eared champion. Scorpion wander into your campsite? Look out, claim jumpers and other desert-type evildoers! "Hey Bruce, check out that stingray!" Time to start taking scuba lessons.

And of course that segues into my theory that these panels represent a series of branching possible timelines, that without the bat crashing through his window Bruce Wayne would have continued to stare at his table and grope for inspiration. And then he went camping and did or did not see a scorpion, and if he didn't he took a riverboat tour. And if he didn't see something eerie on that tour then Bruce Wayne would have abandoned his company and accepted a position as a forest ranger - anything to find that elusive spark that would catalyze the lifetime of face-punching that he so longed for.

Eventually, of course, Bruce starts to get desperate, as seen above. But he hasn't lost his vengeful spark! He takes what might be the least threatening astronomical object - or at least the object tied with Cloud of Interstellar Hydrogen for least threatening - and turns into what is actually kind of a creepy costume.

Now, this is the really telling one, the one that reveals just how long Bruce Wayne could have kept his anger focused without a totem to channel it through. Some of Wayne's careful honing of mind and body has come undone if his response to almost getting clobbered by a suit of armour is to put it on and employ it in a career of rooftop vigilanteism. The joke has come full circle here: we might as well be seeing the grim vigil of the Marble Statue or the Carelessly Hoisted Piano. It's all written there in that stock-upright, what-the-hell-am-I-doing-up-here stance. In this universe, Superman's best friend is the Flash.

The Seamier Side of Smallville

Welcome back to Smallville, Ladies and Gents. As per usual we find our hero Superboy utilizing the full range of his extraordinary powers to help teach one of his peers an important life lesson. This time, the lesson is about safety!

 

 Yes, safety! The kind of thing that you can only truly comprehend once you've watched another boy taking a bath!

 

Correction: filmed another boy taking a bath!