Elizabeth Sparkle & Mortimer

(this is the sound of me cracking my knuckles like you'd see in movies when the writer puts a new sheet of paper in the typewriter after leaving the thing gathering dust in the fucking corner for god knows how long because he's going through, y'know, stuuuuff, when really he just needs a good stiff drink and now one of you's actually saying, "Wait, how come this is on the internet if you're using a typewriter?" and GOD, you're ruining it...)

So, we're driving to get some groceries, and The Little Miss is strapped into her carseat like she's about to be launched into the stratosphere, and she's got this tiny little booklet in her hands, and although I can recognize it as the less-than-useless instruction manual for the shitty dustbuster we picked up about a month ago, I gamely ask, "Whatcha reading?"

To which she replies, "It's a TREASURE MAP."

Which means, holy shit, game ON, right? Right. So:

"So where's this treasure s'posed to be?"

"First, we have to go to Non-Messy Island." 

"Non-Messy Island? Why's it called that?"

"Because it's not messy at all; it's spotless!"

Okay, shoulda seen that coming, then: "And then we go to Dangerous Lagoon, which is filled with danger!"

"What kinda danger?"

"First, there's a BEAST, who also has a pet beast."

"Okay."

"Then we have to go past the Snake Guards, and after that we have to fight the Tiger Princesses, and Lion Knights, and there's also a lake with sharks in it, so we have to be careful."

"Anything else?" 

"There's also a Wolf Gentler."

"What's a Gentler?"

"He's the person who bangs the hammer down when the prisoners are taken to jail."

"So, he's like a judge?"

"No, he's a GENTLER."

"Okay."

"This place used to be called Licorice Lagoon, like in Candyland? But then the licorice started getting everyone stuck and then no one could leave and they all died. And then it became dangerous, so they called it Dangerous Lagoon. But we can eat our way through the licorice, and if we're nice to the Gingerbread People, they'll help us past the dangerous parts."

"And then we find the treasure?"

"No, then we have to fight the Pirate Ruler; her name is Captain Crook, because she stole the treasure from Rapunzel a long long time ago. So we fight Captain Crook. With swords!"

"Do we get hurt?"

"No, we WIN!"

"So we get the treasure?"

"NO; because she's hidden it on another island. Next we have to go to Rubba-Dubba Island."

"On a pirate ship?"

"No, in our car!"

"How do we get across the water?"

"IT'S A FLYING CAR!"

"Okay; then what?"

"Then we have to use a magic mirror to find it, we say, "MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL, WHERE'S THE TREASURE ON THE WALL?", and it shows us by shooting lightning all the way to the Cave of Water. But in the cave, we have to use the Necklace of Power. It's a necklace that sticks to metal and can make money and gold pour out of your hands and it can help you turn on taps and it can also change the seasons for you; also it can do dangerous things."

"Like what?"

"I dunno."

"Okay; then we get the treasure?"

"Yes! It's a Golden Purse, and inside are three things: a wand, a crown, and a magic rope. But these are only things for me. But they're magic, and they can help us find more treasure, so we can find something for you!"

"That sounds fair."

"Also we have different names in this; what do you want your name to be?"

"Can I be Mortimer?"

"Sure! And my name will be ELIZABETH SPARKLE!"

Dude, she is drawing pictures of this as we speak, I shit you not. We are making a BOOK. Be warned.

Walking With Hazel: Jeez, When Was The Last Time We Went For An Actual Walk?

So, today started out kinda slow, because Dad is what we like to refer here at NBNF as 'a lazy bastard', so we didn't really get to clean up the garden or rake the leaves or, hell, have breakfast, because Dad woke up at 12:45 on a day when he was s'posed to pick up the Little Miss at 1:00. Suffice to say, there was a tiny bit of panic as Dad kinda showered and kinda got dressed and gulped down a cold Americano and rushed off and got halfway to Mom's place before realizing that he'd forgotten his wallet and phone and some other important stuff, so he came back home and let's just start this over, shall we?

So. 

1. Caffe Beano.

The majority of our time here was pretty much one big game of 'Gotcher Nose!' that Dad, Jess and Jeannie tried to play with Hazel (while Dad nursed a coffee and tried to wake up) which ended quite promptly when The Little Miss informed us that there was really no way that we could have removed her nose and hidden it in the drawer with all the coffee beans because it was glued to her face, which led Jeannie to shout out into a crowded coffee shop, "OHMIGOD HAZEL WHERE'S YOUR NOSE?", obviously in an attempt to convince her that we had actually removed her nose, but to no avail. It was kinda funny, though, because a lot of people turned and stared at us.

2. Phil's Diner.

While Dad was quite grateful for the chance to stop and scarf down some good ol' fashioned grease before getting on with our errands, let's just say that it probably wasn't the best idea to eat breakfast/brunch/lunch/late lunch/oh-christ-is-it-really-that-late-in-the-day? with a 4-year-old at a place where everyone's chair swivels.

Or maybe it was. Onwards!

3. Fair's Fair. 

Now, Dad would like to point out that he did, in fact, find a new China Mieville novel to read, (an uncorrected proof, at that, which really doesn't mean anything other than it ain't got no cover art or nuthin' but who cares cuz it's China fucking Mieville, right? Right.), but he'll also admit that the highlight of this stop was listening to an older lady inquire of the clerk as to what this whole 'Burning Man Festival' was, and then when hearing the explanation offered replied, "Oh, it's like that Jane Fonda movie, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?", and then proceeded to explain what the movie was about before leaving with her purchase, after which the clerk turned to her co-worker and asked, "Why was that lady talking about shooting whores?"

Then Hazel got to pick out her own books, and while Dad paid for them, she pointed out the huge oil paintings adorning the walls that featured characters from various fairy tales, and then proceeded to tell Dad a story featuring every one of characters, which was pretty much about a lion leaving the jungle and visiting a wizard and asking him to help the unicorn who was under the spell of a rainbow so that it couldn't marry the princess. But, y'know, with a lot more detail.

4. Once Upon A Child.

Let's just say that we managed to pick up some new pajamas for The Little Miss, and forget that fact that Dad nearly punched a lady who pushed Hazel out of her way in one of the aisles, and while Dad will admit that there's a possibility he might've overreacted, he's okay with letting everyone know that if you touch his child he will end you.

5. Co-op.

This is where we needed to take a bathroom break, although we could clearly hear someone in the next stall making noises, which led Hazel to ask Dad what those noises were, to which Dad replied that the person probably was trying to go poop, wherein Hazel responded loudly, "Wow, that must be the biggest poop in the world!"

6. And home.

And since it was so late in the day, Dad let Hazel watch Kung Fu Panda while he made dinner, and when he came in to say that it was ready, he watched as she attempted to somersault in the air from the couch to the chair but missed completely and landed in a heap on the floor, only to jump up immediately and announce that she was perfectly fine, and that she needed to try that jump so that she wouldn't be scared when it was bedtime and she was in her bedroom alone in the dark.

Yes, my child practices kung fu in order to combat nightmares. Holy Shit. Hazel is officially The Awesome.

Then we had dinner and listened to some music, and then Le Tigre came on and Hazel put down her fork and told Dad matter-of-factly that "we can't eat while we're dancing" and then ran away from the dinner table, and I think that's the best place to end this.

Walking With Hazel: EPIC.

So, yes, we had an epic weekend. 


Of course, we ALWAYS have epic weekends, so much so that we've decided not to use the term 'epic' anymore, and now we just make do with, "Oh, my weekend? yeah, it was okay..."


So but still: had a big long post ready, had copious notes on who and what and where and for exactly how much, notes on how we kidnapped Rob and forced him to work in our version of the salt mines (i.e. the wilderness that is our backyard) armed with only a weed-whacker and a glass of lemonade, how the Little Miss spent the entire time documenting our progress with her camera, only it's not a real camera, it's one of those pop-up ones where a little guy popped up when you hit the trigger/selector/BUTTON OF DOOM, but she was quite diligent with it regardless, and how we discovered that on Dad's camera (the real one) every picture that'd been taken over the last two months seemed to consist of Hazel in her pajamas while eating pancakes with strawberries, bananas, & whipped cream, and of course how Rob discovered we had a wasp's nest in our raspberry bushes by hitting it with the aforementioned weed-whacker, which meant that everyone became quite acquainted with the usage of witch hazel, except for Hazel herself, who at the time was still inside taking 'pictures' of the whole ordeal.


And that was only Saturday.


And then I scrapped it, because the only thing you really need to know is that it started out with Dad waking up, wondering where the Little Miss had gotten to, and that he eventually found her in the front yard, still in her pajamas but riding her unicorn (which is kind of a creepy toy because it's a unicorn HEAD on a STICK, and it's got a battery-powered whinny, and GOD THE NIGHTMARES, but anyway:), which caused Dad to ask: 


"Whatcha doin'?"


To which she replied:


"I DRANK THE MAGIC POTION SO NOW I CAN RIDE THE MAGIC UNICORN!"


And, honestly, if that isn't the set-up to an epic weekend, I don't know what else could be.




Speaking of epic: this is quite possibly the only song that truly deserves to be described as such:

Hi.

I think it was 2011 when I last posted. I'm not sure. THE INTERNET IS SO DIFFERENT NOW. Well, not really, but still: this kinda feels like breaking into an apartment you'd moved outta years ago in a building that'd since been condemned, just to see if something remains from THEN to maybe help shed light on the NOW.


Oh, Jesus, I just paralleled a Barenaked Ladies song. I deserve no internet forever.


Anyway: baby steps.


Stuff I Saw On The Bike Ride Home From Work While I Was Pistoning My Fat Legs & Trying To Keep My Belly Fat From Getting Caught In The Spokes:


1. A teenager in the driver's seat of a red corvette, wriggling out of a basketball jersey without bothering to remove his seatbelt.


2. A very tanned good-ol-boy, complete with mullet and handlebar moustache, at the wheel of a battered olive-coloured truck, blasting Ludacris on his stereo and rapping along word for word. He nearly hit me, but it's okay because he stopped just in time and was very sincere in his apology. I just kinda gasped for breath and kept pedalling, because somewhere, out there, is a version of me that doesn't get tired when he gets up from a chair.


3. A woman eating an entire McDonald's Chicken McNugget Meal in front of a church (the one that Mark once said was gonna be his vampire home) while waiting for the bus.


4. A window decal at Starbucks that said 'This Is My Now Frappuccino' which puzzled me because I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS HOW DID I GET SO OLD.


5. Ducks.


That is all. Your Tumblr account is basically you just saying that you've given up on memory, and now you have a place to keep all of your special things.


Your homework: list every possible type of apocalypse you can think of. Zombies don't count, of course.

Walking With Hazel: Let's Ignore How Long It's Been Since We've Posted One Of These, Okay?

First Dad woke up and coughed a lot, because he's got this stupid chest cold that just won't go away, and if he thought he felt like an old man before, well, just you wait until he sees how he feels after one of these coughing fits, the kind that take a full couple of minutes to get out and then leave you unable to see or hear for a few seconds. Yeah. That's right.


Anyway, we've established many times that Dad's a wimp. No big news there. Moving on.


So Dad dragged his lazy carcass outta bed and got all cleaned up and whatnot and headed to the indoor playground at Eau Claire, because that's where the Little Miss and Mom and some other people were waiting, and when Dad got there, Hazel proceeded to mete out the snacks (carrot sticks and grapes and chocolate covered almonds) because it was very important that SHE BE IN CONTROL OF THE SNACKS, and we must say that she was very fair about it, and everyone got enough snacks.


Then we played. First Mom showed Hazel how easy it was to climb up slides if you took your socks off, and then Hazel showed another little girl, who kinda got the hang of it but only took off one sock instead of both so she kinda had a hard time, even with the Little Miss encouraging her. Then Hazel found the window that she pretended was the ice cream shop, and then Dad bought $14.20 worth of chocolate chicken ice cream. Then Dad had to be locked underneath the playset, because he was a scary dinosaur ghost that made scary noises. Then Hazel was a princess that had to be locked in the tower, until another little girl came along and generously offered Hazel a key so that she could escape the tower. And then it was time to go, so we walked to Dad's car, making sure that we stepped on the proper cobblestones, because you had to step on the ones going up and down (NOT right to left) otherwise we'd be trapped. Then Hazel crossed a big snowbank all on her own and didn't even fall over once.


Next we went to Dad's work, where we had to use the bathroom, but we held our breath because it was stinky. Then we got a cookie and orange juice and played a game with Bruce where we pretended we'd all switched names, but then Dad and Bruce got confused and kept thinking that Bruce was Hazel and that Hazel was Dad and that Dad was Bruce, and then Hazel set us straight by yelling at us a lot. Then Hazel pretended she was a robot, so she had to say, "READY", all the time, and then Dad had to change her batteries.


Then we laughed at Christina for having to sweep outside. HA HA! But not really, because Christina is awesome, and plus she's not afraid to punch dad when she's angry.


Then we went grocery shopping, and after we got all of our stuff, we remembered to get purple flowers for the kitchen table, and then Garrett at Sunnyside Market gave the Little Miss two heart stickers. Two of 'em! Imagine that. Then Hazel decided that Mom needed some purple flowers, too, so we delivered some flowers to her house, and then we splashed in the puddles and Hazel commented that some of the melting ice on the sidewalk looked like rivers, and Dad agreed, and then we splashed some more.


Then we got in the car, and Hazel decided that she liked this song as her favourite for now, so we listened to it all the way home, which Dad didn't mind because it seriously fucking slays. Just don't tell Hazel that he swore, okay? Okay. 


Then we got home, and Hazel found a stick that she could use for long walks, but we left it by the back door, and only after Dad promised that the squirrels wouldn't eat it. Then Hazel decided that only pirates were allowed in the living room, so Dad just put the groceries away, and now he's making tea. Seriously. Tea. Not coffee, because coffee doesn't really help with coughs, and he'll be goddamned if he's gonna go through another weekend without kicking this goddamned cough. Jeez.

Geeking Out: I Like Superheroes. No, Really.

So, okay: I sent y'all off with some recommendations on What Funnybooks The Cool Kids Are Reading These Days (Or At Least Me), thinking that it'd be an easy trip down to the local Komick Shoppe where you could find what you were looking for safely and without much commotion, and if you did have any trouble, bright-eyed and kindly assistants would be at your beck and call to help you locate said graphic literature, and who knows, they might even wrap your purchase up in butcher's paper and twine (to protect from the elements, natch) and send you on your merry way with a gentle but eager wave.


Then I realized that y'all might actually talk to the people who work there, which means that at least one, if not all, of you would suffer through this little horrific exchange:


You: "I'm kinda new at this whole comic thing; anything you'd recommend?"


Kindly Assistant: "Oh, man, you gotta check out the new Green Lantern books! They're awesome, they've got a Lantern Corp for each colour now, and the Red Lanterns puke blood!"

I know this is gonna happen, because I've already experienced a similar exchange, and lemme tell you right now, the only reason that guy thinks the new Green Lantern title is cool is because he gets to read it for free. 


There is no such thing as good Green Lantern comic; never has been, never will be, no matter what Bryn Evans tells you. (Okay, Willworld was actually pretty decent, and that whole Mosaic thing during the nineties featuring schizophrenic John Stewart was certainly interesting, but still...). You wanna know why that Ryan Reynolds movie sucked? It was because the comic it was based on pretty much sucked. It's a comic about a guy with a magic wishing ring, which you'd think would lend itself to some interesting visual narrative and storytelling, but more often than not, you get giant green boxing gloves and aliens who vomit rage-I-mean-blood. In space, mind you, so I guess that makes it okay.


Don't get me wrong: I love me my superheroes. I love the heroes and the villains and the sidekicks and butlers and crazy uncles and love-children and alien pets and pan-dimensional alternates and everyone else in between. But the only reason I have this colossal knowledge of past and present spandex-clad bruisers is because, back in the day, in the long long ago, when the Wee Book Inn actually taught me that I could describe myself as a 'bookseller' instead of a 'cashier/stockboy' on my resume, I worked at a place that had a backstock of, I swear to god, THOUSANDS of comics. And this was just in one location.


Lemme tell ya, I read every one of 'em, and the only reason I did so was because I was able to do it for free. Because while I loved reading the Spider-Man Clone Saga or those weird Tales of The Dark Knight issues, or the 'Five Years Later...' Legion of Super-Heroes reboot, I could recognize that as much as I loved them, they weren't amazing, and that I'd probably hate myself if I'd actually spent money on them.


This happens to be the case with most superhero comics, and I hate to kinda dump on 'em, because there are some very good writers and artists working their asses off on these things, and yes, some of them will be worth your hard-earned $4.99 (go out and buy All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely RIGHT NOW. I mean it. Do it, or I'll punch your mom) but the fact remains that the majority of superhero comics are only printed to be disposable; they're big violent angst-ridden soap-operas, designed, like anything else mass-produced, to appeal to the lowest common denominator, in this case, teenage boys (although there currently is a debate going on as to whether comic-dom's biggest slice of the readership pie might indeed belong instead to those 30-40 year-olds who can't stand to see any change whatsoever in their underwear champions, i.e., Green Lantern HAS to be Hal Jordan, The Flash HAS to be Barry Allen, etc, but see, now I've opened up a can of worms that you don't really want  to have anything to do with because ultimately IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO WEARS THE COWL IF YOU'RE STILL LIVING WITH YOUR MOM.).


(Okay, sorry, that was harsh. But, really...).


Long story short: it's a rare superhero comic that warrants critical attention. They're out there, to be sure, and if you've got the time, the inclination, and the money to sort through the veritable ocean of crap in order to find Jonathan Hickman's run on Fantastic Four, or Morrison's run on New X-Men (Stebner, you're wrong, it's effing brilliant, and I'll fight you if you say otherwise), well, then, more power to you. I hope you find what you're looking for, which is probably gonna be, y'know, Green Lanterns puking blood, or Strangely Alluring Female Wolverine That I Can Have Weird Feelings About, or Rough Trade Superboy.

(I'd just like to say at this point that I have no problem with Rough Trade Superboy; my problem is that I don't think any of the creators involved with Superboy are even aware of the phrase 'rough trade', otherwise Superboy would've had a VERY different costume over the course of the last ten years.)


(I, for, one think it'd be kinda awesome if DC went out on a limb and wrote Superboy as a gay character in their current AMAZING MULTIVERSE REBOOT CRISIS that they're foisting on us right now, instead of giving the LGBTQ community this as their token of diversity. But I digress.)


(What was my point again? Ah, yes...)


Here's the thing: the guys that work at these places? They're allowed to be excited about Angry Stabbing Action Aquaman, it's part of the reason they work at comic shops: so that they can be around these things, which, when you don't have to shell out five bucks an issue, can be quite fun to read. So I'm not trying to shit on them, either. Most of them are lovely people who happen to be lucky enough to work in a place that sells their favourite things ever, and they're just excited to share those favourite things. What I'm trying to say is that their enthusiasm might not directly translate into your own, which might be common sense, you say, but, well, there's a reason why we were selling those comics at the Wee Book Inn for a quarter each, y'know? 


Besides: now you have me to steer you in the right direction. Right? Right. So, when you go to pick up the latest trade paperback of Criminal, and Kindly Assistant asks if you've read Brubaker's work on The Death of Captain America (guess what? He doesn't really die! NONE OF THEM DO!), you can tell him (or her) to go to hell.


But, y'know, nicely. Because, y'know, they're only doing their job.


(I should also point out: I didn't really love the Spider-Man Clone Saga. If I'm to be honest, it was atrocious, and should be stricken from human memory, just like most of the superhero comics coming out in the nineties. If anyone tells you different, punch 'em in the junk, because they're a no-good damned dirty liar.)

Geeking Out: 5 Current Titles You Should Be Reading Right Now.

So, yes: I said I was gonna school y'all on comix, and then disappeared. Well, that happens when a) everyone in your extended family comes down with various versions of The Clench, and b) Batman: Arkham City comes out. I mean, really, Hugo Strange ain't gonna just stop being an evil prison warden performing illegal psychological experiments on inmates by me just wishing, right? 


Right. So. At the moment, the Little Miss is no longer horking up gouts of phlegm (and is in fact practicing her Black Canary scream, which is equal parts annoying and awesome), and for the time being, Arkham City's been tamed, because I am, as Mr. Brown so eloquently put it, 'great at video games, awful at life', so here goes: what you should be reading and why.


1. The Walking Dead (Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore & Charlie Adlard)

Okay, this one's easy, mainly because if there's one thing people haven't gotten tired of yet, it's zombies. I'm not gonna get into why the idea of a zombie apocalypse appeals to so many people (we'll talk about that some other time), I'm just gonna say that Kirkman and Adlard have gone to great lengths making this one as realistic and as compelling as possible; anyone who's seen AMC's television series that the comic's inspired can tell you the same, as much as the zombies are the main attraction, it's the storytelling that keeps you around.


Kirkman stated, in an introduction to the first volume, that his frustration with zombie movies came about because he always wanted to see what happened next. We all know that the only good zombie movies are the ones that end with our heroes escaping one bad situation only to find themselves in a worse one, there's really no place for happy endings in the genre. Acceptable endings, maybe, but not happy ones. Kirkman's desire for more led to him creating The Walking Dead, which follows our hero Rick and his family (and a small plucky band of survivors, naturally) through crisis after crisis after crisis, and while a lot of familiar genre tropes pop up time and again, there's no point in the series that feels stale or contrived; in fact, Kirkman seems more than adept at controlling the tension in this story, giving the reader an almost perfect ebb and flow of introspection versus action, all the while underlining a few consistent points throughout: no one's really a hero, no one's truly a villain, the real danger always comes from those left alive as opposed to the shambling undead, and no one is safe. This is helped out in no small part by Adlard's black & white art, which depicts a credible world-left-to-its-own-devices backdrop filled with hordes of flesh-eating monsters that, while definitely gruesome, are unique enough in appearance to remind us that these were all at one point real people.


The series is up to issue 90 so far, which is an accomplishment in itself, and like I said, it never lets up, so if you need your zombie apocalypse itch scratched, you can't do any better than this.


2. The Unwritten (Mike Carey, Peter Gross & Ryan Kelly)

Tommy Taylor has a problem, and it's not the fact that he can't escape his late father's shadow, a man who used his son as a character in a series of highly-successful children's novels that have nothing at all to do with Harry Potter. At all. Nor is it related to the shadowy cabal of writers throughout history that he's just discovered his father was a part of, a group that now wants Tommy dead. Well, okay, those are both PART of the problem, but the bigger thing bothering him lately is that he can't actually figure out whether he's a real honest-to-godness person, or just a figment of his father's imagination come to life.


It should come as no surprise that Mike Carey's newest title is as engrossing as it is; this is the man who took one of Neil Gaiman's secondary characters from The Sandman, Lucifer, and churned out a monster of a series that not only rivalled Gaiman's epic, but also (no pun intended) literally gave the devil his due. Honestly. Go read that thing, it's insanely good. While you're at it, check out Carey's run on Hellblazer, too, which is also stupidly well-written. 


But: The Unwritten. What we have here is an adventure story that not only entertains better than most of the different works that it gives nod to (everything from the Harry Potter series to Moby freakin' Dick), but also examines the act of creating fiction, as well as our relationship as readers to the idea of fiction itself. There are only four volumes out so far, so it's not as daunting to start as some of the other recommendations you'll find here. So, um, get to it.


3. DMZ (Brian Wood & Riccardo Burchielli)

Brian Wood first came on the comic scene in the late 90's with a little thing called Channel Zero, a 5-issue experiment in stylistic narrative that dealt with dystopian paranoia, political activism and media manipulation. Since then he's worked on quite a few other topics, but it's these themes (and more) that show up in DMZ, a story about a second U.S. civil war in the near future, set in the bombed-out demilitarized zone (duh) of Manhattan, as told through the eyes of Matty Roth, a young photojournalist who at first becomes trapped in the DMZ, then later chooses to make it his home. Wood's storytelling is terse and pulls no punches, dissecting motives and causes on each side, revealing each to be as self-serving as they might be noble; and Burchielli's art is exceptional, infusing urban war-zones and their inhabitants with their own innate colour and life. 


Because that's the thing: it's obviously a BIG STORY ABOUT WAR, but more importantly, it's about the survivors of war, the people who have to live through having soldiers shooting guns at each other in their living rooms, and the courage they need to possess in order to greet each day. It's also a love letter to America, and before you roll your eyes at what you think is another glorification of unbridled patriotism that would fit right at home on CNN or Fox News, here's a fact we as non-Americans need to swallow: for all the jerks and assholes that we tend to lash out at, the majority of Americans are pretty damned awesome. One needs only look at the Occupy Wall Street and its subsequent spin-offs to see examples of this, and DMZ works because, at its heart, it's a big fuck-you aimed at those in power who would steamroll over the little people in order to get what they want. 


Plus it's nice to look at, so give it a chance.


4.  Casanova (Matt Fraction & Gabriel Ba)

OHMIGOD THIS COMIC IS SO FUGGIN COOL.

No, really: Casanova Quinn is a young Mick Jagger as James Bond, jumping through alternate realities as a pawn for both E.M.P.I.R.E. ("Extra-Military Police, Intelligence, Rescue & Espionage") and W.A.S.T.E. ("We're All So Terribly Excited", or maybe not...) as he meets, fights, fucks and/or kills the coolest cast of hyper-spy-fiction characters ever invented. Matt Fraction peppers his frenetic storyline with all manner of pop-culture references and cinematic one-liners, all the while maintaining a sharp narrative that's as tightly layered as it is cool; and that's the thing: Casanova is seriously all about the notion of cool, and how good-looking corpses get all the best action anyway, so fuck it, you might as well get your hands dirty.


But also: Casanova's about family dynamics, the idea of personal change, and how sometimes it's okay to be nice instead of cool. Matt Fraction is my hero, and Gabriel Ba just makes it all look so pretty.


5. Scalped (Jason Aaron & R.M. Guera)

...and here's the big one. I don't mind going out on a limb and saying that Scalped is probably the best comic currently being published, and as much as I know all good stories end, it breaks my heart to hear that Scalped will soon be publishing it's final issue, because the quality involved in this series is top-notch. 


Scalped is a modern noir story set on a fictional reservation in South Dakota, featuring Dashiell Bad Horse, as he returns home to his people after fifteen years of bouncing between jail and the military and jail again and so on; of course, he's not home to reminisce with old friends or anything like that - he's there as an undercover agent for the FBI in an effort to take down local crime boss Lincoln Red Crow, who's also President of the reservation's Tribal Council, as well as the head of the local Sheriff Dept. 


To tell any more would be spoiling the story, but trust me when I say that Aaron and Guera knock this one outta the park; as a crime story, it's sad, gritty, ugly and fraught with tension, its characters showing a multitude of shades of grey in their moral quandaries and choices, and it's almost impossibly well-researched, giving the story and its setting the proper respect and humanity it deserves. In fact, some of the best pieces of writing in the series are stand alone issues that deal less with the main plot and more with the Lakota people, the inhabitants of said reservation (issue 35, "Listening to the Earth Turn", being a prime example, focusing on an elderly couples' struggle to maintain their way of life on the outskirts of time, or issue 10, "Casino Boogie (5 of 6)" which features young Dino Poor Bear trying to decide if it's more courageous to leave the reservation (and his poverty) behind, or stay and try to endure for the sake of his family).  


It's been a fantastic read so far, and it's all leading to an end that promises to be satisfying, if not more than a little bloody. You can't go wrong with Scalped. 


Of course, there are other titles you should be checking out (Morning Glories, Criminal, Wasteland, just to name a few) but I figured I'd stop at five. Your wallet will thank me. 


Next up: 5 Completed Series You Should Have In Your Library. Now I must go tend a puking child.