It’s funny…  This promo opens with the opening of my article about these ads yesterday.  And yesterday I told myself that I was going to stop running these until there was some more quantifiable news about the book.

And then they hit me with Harry Potter and I just had to laugh.

So, to date, there’s still no news about the Guardians of the Globe book except that there is one coming in August.  My guess is it’s the super-hero team up book of the Image Universe and we’ll see Invincible and Spawn, Savage Dragon and Shadowhawk, and so on.

So, no matter how funny the image they send me tomorrow, be sure I won’t run it unless it’s accompanied by some actual details.

Or if it’s just that god-damned hilarious to top Harry Potter…

Get excited! We’ve got some great comics bending over the examination table this week!

Starting with Kick-Ass #8

Every time I pick up a new issue of Kick-Ass no matter how wrong I’ve been every other time, I say to myself, “This one can’t possibly be as good as the last one.” And I’ve been wrong every single time. This last issue didn’t let me down in any way. I thought I wanted to see the movie before, but I have to say before reading this issue, I never knew what it was really like to want to go see a movie. Kick-Ass is easily on my list of favorite comics, and Mark Millar’s best to date. This issue was so gory, and so hilarious, read it before the movie comes out! It was worth the wait!

If I had to choose between life, and Kick-Ass, I would choose life. But only because then I couldn’t appreciate Kick-Ass! -Slugtron

Overview: I creamed in my pants from a mere glance of this ass-hole, and not just a little bit. It’s like concentrated anti-Medusa.

Prognosis: It’s bloody, hairy, leaky, and spongy, and I love it!

Next on the list, Siege #2

There has been quite a bit of hype going on with Siege, and when I read the first issue I didn’t think it was bad, but I didn’t think it was as good as the raves going on about it. I sensed it would get better and better for every Marvel comic you’ve picked up for the last five years, but I haven’t been reading that many. I was still versed enough to understand what was going on, but save to say, I was asking a lot of questions.

As for the second issue, I thought it was way better than the first, and in fact it was better than most comic books. But at the same time I felt there were a lot of things that didn’t hold as much weight without the back story. I think a dead give away of this fact is the roll-call page they put into this issue. Then there were some things that held just as much weight, (like the sentry ripping Ares in half.) That’s right, spoiler alert sucka’s! And I thought the ending was cool, but I don’t think Bendis brings the majesty to Cap the way Mark Millar does. I’m just sayin’.

Overview: If I had to pay for ass, (which I don’t) I would pay for a slice of this one. (Although you’ve got to hate the 4 dollar price tag on popular comics.)

Prognosis: Safe for banging.

Last up, Ultimate Enemy #1

Another Bendis title, one that proves he’s stretched a little thin. This was essentially an issue of Ultimate Fantastic Four after Ultimatum, with a few other cameo rolls granted. The thing is, Bendis has written UF4 and it was much better than this. I’m not a Bendis fan but I know he can do much better.

It’s issues like this that make me wonder why they even bothered with Ultimatum. I’ll admit I’ve liked all of the Ultimate titles since Ultimatum, but this issue was bad. It was literally flashing around the world to different super heroes, capturing a boring moment of their lives right before a mysterious explosion goes off, five times in a row. Ultimatum was so confusing I don’t know what’s what in the universe anymore, I need some more exposition to be entertained.

Unfortunately just because this issue was bad it doesn’t mean that the next one will be. That means we still have at least four more dollars to gamble on Bendis, if he lets us down again I think we need to start an ass e-mail campaign. (Which is similar to a normal e-mail campaign.)

Five explosions! -Slugtron

Overview: This title worries me about the future of the Ultimates universe, especially with the news that Jeph Loeb is writing New Ultimates.

Prognosis: This ass-hole is as shriveled as an eighty-year old’s and it’s brand new! It’s the Benjamin Button of ass-holes.

Batman Confidential #40

Written and illustrated by Sam Keith, (Creator of The Maxx) this is definitely worth getting just to look at. The story doesn’t seem bad, but it doesn’t seem to stand out either. I really like where his art style is going in this book. Most of the panels make me want to frame them, and hang them on my wall. While I don’t think I was completely pulled in by the story yet, I think it has potential, and I’m really interested to see where it goes in the next few issues. The best part about this run is that it is more like a Sam Keith Elseworlds, so you can jump on board whether you are reading any other Batman comic or not. Viva Batman Confidential #40!

Overview: A fine looking ass-hole by anyone’s standards, the only problem is the location. Usually I like to see my ass-holes dead center of the buttock, while this one hangs to the far right. I’m just glad I’m not the one pooping out the side of my ass.

Prognosis: One beautiful ass colon!

Batgirl #1-6

I’ve always been a fan of both Batgirl, and Stephanie Brown (The Spoiler), and so this seemed like an obvious addition to my hold, (Because the Spoiler is currently Batgirl) although I even began with mixed feelings. For starters, who the hell is Bryan Q. Miller?  And why does he think he’s good enough to write such a book. I don’t trust most of DC’s all-star writers to write these characters, let alone this ass-hole. Although I gave him some six issue leeway to see if he could impress me, and at the end of the third issue it took a turn from “Whatever” to “I don’t like you very much,” when he had Oracle give Stephanie Brown a really stupid looking costume.

If ass-holes had brains, this one still wouldn’t have one! -Slugtron

Honestly the comic did get a little better after she switched costumes because she began interacting with Dick, and Damian, but all at the price of seeing her in this new ridiculous costume. Basically I feel like the book is bitter sweet at best, but leaning more towards the sex with an in-law side of bitter sweet. It basically feels like a bad episode of L.A. Law.

Overview: To get to the problem with this ass-hole I had to examine its shit. Now, if you know me, you’d know I don’t like examining shit. I don’t even like saying the word. My business is ass-holes, and I’ve got to tell you brother, business is booming!

Prognosis: I don’t even know if I’m looking at a bonafide ass-hole.

Last up, Fables # 92

This is the first of a two part series called “Out to the Ball Game.” Let me start off by saying, I’m glad they aren’t wasting Mark Buckingham on this run. It’s not horrible, it’s just a clear deviation from what I want to read about. This issue takes place in Flycatchers Kingdom, where Goblins and recently deceased fables live in harmony under his rule. In fact the issue starts with a parody of Casey at the Bat, where Goblins are the opposing baseball team, and Weyland Smith is Casey playing for humanoid fables. The Goblin Pitcher ends up getting drunk and killing a fable in his drunk stupor, and the next issue is going to be his trial. There I said it! I gave everything away! So now there’s no need to read the issue at all. Honestly other than the Great Fables Crossover, this seems to be the lamest deviation to date. I don’t mind these when they’re added into the trades, but I hate to see them monthly.

Overview: This is an old ass-hole that’s been pooping quite some time, and I imagine it’s going to continue to poop for quite a while longer. I would now like to conjecture what this creatures mouth has been eating lately. Card board, very high fiber, hurts coming out, stinks like a prostitute, leaves a handsome rash for a few days.

Prognosis: A strong enduring colon. Recommending a return visit to the ol’ass doctor soon.

You can pre-order Something Something Something Dark Side from Amazon.com!

Hello everyone, here we are again at the Tee with Doctor Cyborg. In which I take time out of my busy golf schedule to talk to you about whatever I feel like, while golfing at a slightly reduced pace, alongside my faithful caddy Slugtron! Today we will be doing some holiday golfing, and talking about Robert Zemeckis’ new film A Chrismas Carol. So pour yourself some Homemade Eggnog (12 eggs, 3 pints heavy cream, 1 cup sugar, nutmeg, 1 cup bourbon whiskey, 1 cup cognac, 1/2 tsp salt. Serve in a punch bowl) and lets go golfing!

The biggest question I had to ask myself when going to see a remake of this classic story was, why? And to be perfectly honest I don’t know if there’s a good answer. Beowulf, Zemeckis’ last film made sense to me, and I thought it turned out really good. (It did have Neil Gaiman attached to the script after all) Beowulf is a classic story, but popular culture has yet to be flooded with its presence, and therefore I thought it was a good choice.

The Christmas Carol story is admittedly amazing, but it has been told so many times, and told well most of the time. Including the book itself which is still highly accessible and readable. But that doesn’t make this movie a mistake outright. This is a cartoon, making it easy to take kids to, and it’s also a more classic interpretation of the story, which isn’t predominant most of the times I’ve seen it told. Therefore it does have some value, but on “Par” with Tim Burton’s recant of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

“Slugtron, the nine iron you idiot! I’m trying to kill a reindeer not an infant! “

eh, where was I? Oh yeah…The next question I was asking myself was, Jim Carey? followed by. Really? And I went in with a bad attitude because I didn’t get it. But honestly he wasn’t over playing the role, there were a few moments that I was annoyed with his face as The Ghost of Christmas Past, but he really wasn’t that much of a ham. He didn’t ruin the movie. The movie wasn’t even really that funny, I think it focused mostly on telling the story visually, and carefully. Which I think are some of Zemeckis’ best strengths. But not ruining a movie isn’t a good reason to cast someone. Jim Carey in multiple roles was definitely a mistake.

Because this movie was based in the 19th century, it lacked a certain…how should I say…robots! I find this highly disparaging. But it didn’t even try to make up for its lack of robots with its CG. I felt some of the scenery and shots were outstanding. I really thought the way they handled Marley (Gary Oldman) was awesome, but the scenes aiming to be 3-D roller coaster rides were out of place, and the character models really weren’t very good.

The models looked like they fell out of Girl Shrek’s vagina! –Slugtron

I will give them credit for mood though. The scenes that were supposed to be scary visually built the right mood. (I know because the human child I took to see it, began to cry because he was so scared! How’s that for proof?)

One thing that surprised me was with the way they did the modeling, It felt like you were looking at the characters faces, but  I could barely tell who the cameo roles were, though some of them did stand out. Bob Hoskins, Mr. Eddy Valiant was definitely an exception to the rule. (Man O’ man is he a good actor.)

Overall I felt that the movie stuck to telling a good story, kept it targeted for an appropriate age group, and didn’t break the boundaries at all. This is good if you are going to the theatre and want to play it safe. It also makes your film instantly forgettable. It was a slightly new take, but it was slight.

It did some things exceptionally, for example, using the fact that they were making a cartoon to there advantage. Some of the stuff they pulled off couldn’t have been done as well with live action. But some things weren’t awesome, for example, I know it’s a Christmas movie, but they were way to forceful with Christmas music. Honestly the story of A Christmas Carol works wonders without Christmas at all. In fact I prefer it when it’s left out, as in Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. It tells a very similar tale, just not at Christmas.

Damn the eighteenth green already, I guess I better wrap it up. Basically it wasn’t horrible, if you are ever going to see it, make it be at the movie theatre. It’s a solid 6 out of 10. Jim Carey isn’t evil, he’s just an idiot.

Marcus (NBC’s Last Comic Standing) and I got together and made this parody trailer for Paranormal Activity.

I hope you like it and I hope you pass it along.

In the meantime, you should follow Marcus and I (Swankmotron) on Twitter.

UPDATE: We have the full-res 100mb version available to download here.

UPDATE 2: Please, vote us up on Funny or Die.

This is a comic strip that originally began in the late seventies, before I was even created, under the title “Inside Woody Allen”. The fact of the matter is despite being a huge Woody Allen fan, I had not even heard about this comic once before it was sent to us  for review.

This particular volume is a compilation of over 300 of the best strips in the series, written by Stuart Hample. The main character of the strip is of course Woody Allen, and the humor is imitating his unique self deprecating world view. Although imitating isn’t the exact right word, because Woody Allen actually helped in its creation. But only by supplying the author with notes from years of his comedy sketches. For the most part I think Stuart Hample was largely successful in replicating Woody Allen in a comic strip.

Even if you aren’t a massive fan of Woody Allen, I think it holds up as a comic strip. If Calvin and Hobbes and Liberty Meadows are on one end of the scale, this falls somewhere behind them, but clearly ahead of The Family Circus and Peanuts. The one problem I had with this as a comic strip is that it was consistently one liners. They were funny, but they were always set-up and delivery. They never took the time to tell a bigger story, which is a negative when reading a big volume like this.

In addition to being filled with the best of 8 years of a funny comic, it has an interesting introduction by Stuart Hample about how he was first introduced to Woody Allen, and got the idea for a comic strip. The introduction includes some of the sketch pages he was given by Woody Allen, which are worth a look.

The book is broken up into seven different chapters, that are separated by the type of jokes their telling. So one chapter titled “Freud’s Last Resort” are jokes themed around Woody Allen’s analyst. And the chapter titled “Every Time She Had an Orgasm, Her Nose Grew Longer” would be jokes about his relationships. I don’t think I could pick a single chapter that I liked the best, because they all had their highs and lows, but the main point is that it was an interesting way to arrange the book.

It’s a fun read, and because every single strip is completely independent it would be easy to put down and come back to. I guess this is the definition of a coffee table book, or what modern man would call a crapper. It’s a nice volume and it would look good on the shelf. A must own if your a Woody Allen fan, and I feel sorry for you if your not.

Despite the fact that it’s supposed to be released on November 1st you can already pick up a copy at Amazon for nearly half the cover price. Buy it Here!

And Here we go!

10) The Phantom Menace
As far as the movies go, this is a low. Not just because of annoying characters introduced (not excluding them either) but simply because it was boring. Most people forget how boring it was. The reason for this, I think, is because of how boring it actually was. Kind of like a boring catch-22.
One thing I hear a lot is that Jar-Jar was the reason the movie was bad. But In a way Jar-Jar makes this movie better. And in no way do I mean that he was entertaining or fun. The reason he makes it better is that his being so ridiculously annoying distracts from everything else that went wrong in the picture. I mean it’s easy for me to think the pod race was cool in contrast to Jar-Jar. It wasn’t until the Pod Race video game came out that I realized the veil that was pulled over my eyes.

9) Anakin Skywalker Through The Ages
Starting with how annoying he was in Phantom Menace, and god was he annoying in Phantom Menace. “It’s working, It’s working!” Geez. It’s hard to imagine how it could get any worse. But it does. Hayden Christensen. It makes me think that ‘Bad Acting’ was a listed requirement to get an audition. If the prequels weren’t a mistake he sure made them feel like one. Not to mention the cartoon voice actors that now have to imitate his stiff line reading (as opposed to acting.)
“A little more stale and more rehearsed.” I can hear the voice director saying.

8) C-3PO
I actually enjoyed him in the first three movies. Somehow. Before George Lucas had to rub our faces in the fact that he is capable of creating the most annoying characters ever conceived in the sci-fi genre. It’s truly amazing how much of your time George was allowed to waste depicting how much trouble C-3PO could get into when his head was placed onto the body of a battle droid. This wasn’t funny. This was stupid.

7) Jar-Jar Binks
I don’t think I need to say much about Jar-Jar, but I do wonder if it’s a coincidence that this character was introduced to the Star Wars universe only a short year after Ferngully 2: The Magical Rescue?

6) The Special Editions
I could get behind the whole special edition thing if it was going to bring something better to the universe. Even if that thing was just digitally adding dewbacks into the background. I mean who wouldn’t want to see that? Well that is pretty dumb. But what I really don’t like is the new Jabba’s palace scene. I think that was the most flagrant waste of time I have ever scene. Tantamount to giving Urkel a wedgie.

5) Because it has no balls
When you pit R2-D2 against a super battle droid it’s literally painful to watch them not blow the shit out of him. Wiping the Gungans off of the face of Naboo wouldn’t have hurt either. Although I will say that Luke blowing up the Death Star strangely works for me.

4) The Star Wars Holiday Special
Some might think it’s low of me to bring this up as a reason Star Wars sucks.
“Oh come on, everyone makes a mistake now and again.” They might say.
But since it was made, and some unfortunate people had to suffer through all two hours of it, I think it’s a healthy reminder to us why we shouldn’t support franchises. As one who had the dishonor of watching several minutes of this myself, I would like to remind some of you of just how bad it was.
Does anyone remember Chewbacca’s son Lumpy? Or his father Itchy? And I wonder why his wife wasn’t brought up in the actual movies?

3) The Ewok Adventures
While watching this I want everyone to take note of the fact that George Lucas has a writing credit.
He did this to you. (He’s also personally responsible for taping Carrie Fisher’s boobs to her chest in the first film.)
I want everyone also to note the fact that Swank-mo-tron bought it on both VHS, and then DVD. “For the kids.” He said.

2) The Clone Wars: Theatre Release
Jabba the Hutt’s kidnapped son? They wanted people to pay to see this?…Really?….Really?

1) Star Wars is Forever
The thing that sucks the most about the series is that it doesn’t know when to stop, and will never stop. No matter how much torture it puts us through, no matter how horrible the live action show ends up being, no matter if scientist prove that watching Star Wars deforms children, it will never stop. There’s a very good chance that in thirty years your childrens, childrens, children will be asking you to buy them the new Star Wars dream house, complete with Darth Vader’s motorcycle, and it makes me sick.

It was disclosed that Ivan Reitman would be attached to the upcoming Ghostbusters 3 project, but in what capacity? IMDB is listing him as a producer, but with no director attached yet, might he take up the mantle?

His involvement was first revealed by MTV in an interview here. Is this exciting news? Should Ivan Reitman take up the reigns and direct the third one? Or should he stick to crap (as opposed to crap sticking to him.) like My Super Ex-Girlfriend?

Personally I don’t  think they should give him another chance, in fact I wish that he weren’t even going to be attached as a producer. He is a no talent hack and has made far more bad films than good ones. Does everyone remember Junior? That was Ivan Reitman that did that to us.

A Big Idiot

I say the least they can do if he stays on the project, is make Megan Fox, or Angelina Jolie the new Janine.

The new trailer for Venture Bros. season four is live at Adult Swim!