Roy Terdberger's Comic Book Happenings

2008: Year of Teh Suck
by Roy Terdberger, Comics Blogger to the stars


Terdberger here, transmitting at you live from 2.20 GHz of AMD Inspiron processing power and enough RAM to fry the short and curlies off your pruny little nut sacks. That's right, friends, Your Homeboy Roy finally saved up enough scratch for that new DELL 9200 he's been eyeing for so long (or as I like to call it, "The Pussy Magnet") - and let me tell you friends, if you thought I was a badass before, just watch out World (of Warcraft)!!!

But I digress. Friends, as you're probably all too aware by now, 2008 is shaping up to be another landmark year in the continuing shittification of the American Funnybook. And you know Roy Terdberger isn't the type to just stand quietly in the corner when something's stuck in his craw. So I'm here to set the record straight on What's 'Hot' and What's 'Not' in 2008.

Oh sure, we've had a few high points. Take 'Brand New Day' for example. Finally someone at Marv-Capital-L had the wherewithal and the cojones to remove the continuity tumor that was the Spider-Marriage. Look, a swingin' 25 year old bachelor like Peter Parker has no business getting hitched. It's boring, it's lame, and it's completely unrealistic. Hell, I'm 36 and I've never even had a real life girlfriend. So cheers to Mr. Quesada for cutting through all the bullshit and bringing back the webshooter. Terdberger salutes you.

Everything else though? Shit. Just shit, shit, shit, and more shit. And it's gonna get worse before it gets any better, believe you me.



Let's start with DC Comics. With 'Final Crisis' just around the corner, there's no denying that DC Editor-in-Chief Dan Didio has a solid, thought out game plan for the future of the DCU. And that plan is utter, dismal failure. I mean Christ, don't even get me started on Countdown. What a clusterfuck! And trust me, I know, I've been buying it every week. This book is so bad, I almost didn't notice Geoff Johns turning Green Lantern into the fucking Mighty Morphin Power Rangers:




In fact the only DC comic coming out right now that's worth half a damn is Nightwing. Now there's a book that needs to be published weekly. Getting it 12 times a year just ain't enough Dick for yours truly.

Meanwhile, over at the House of Ideas - or should I say, The House of BAD Ideas, everything's coming up Skrully. It's retcon season, again, and this time Marvel's cleaning house with a little help from everybody's favorite shapeshifting alien race - The Skrulls. That's right, the same Skrulls who couldn't invade their way out of a wet paper sack have evidently taken over Earth. Yes, the same Earth that Galactus himself couldn't conquer. Yeah, I'll buy that for a dollar. Think Civil War meets Battlestar Galactica (the new one, not the good one), meets whatever drug Brian Michael Bendis was on when he pitched this pitiful excuse for a crossover event. Whatever happened to good crossovers like Heroes Reborn? Oh well, at least this time I've got a contingency plan to reap profit from this dark and dreadful hour:





Pretty smart, huh?






And while I'm on a roll here, I just gotta ask one more thing, folks. Variant Edition Sketch Covers: What the fuck, people?! You mean to tell me for a mere 75 dollars more I can get the exact same book with a shitty, unfinished cover slapped on it? Golly fucking Gee whiz! Please. This is like McDonalds selling Big Macs for 2 bucks, then turning around and selling handfuls of raw meat for 100 bucks. Hey guys, guess what? If I wanted to look at a bunch of black and white chicken scratch, I'd read indie comics. Who's buying this shit, anyway?

Well, that's my time folks. Stargate SG-1 starts in 10 minutes and let's face it: Some things are just more important than comics. So until next time, this is Roy Terdberger, Comics Blogger to the Stars saying: See you in the funny pages!

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Man, I read a damn emo comic.

Would you read anything written by this guy? 

Just look at this kid.  He looks like a meth addicted high school kid who really wants to be  in the marching band but never signed up because he knows his friends would make fun of him, which he wouldn't be able to take considering he already has to deal with football players who aren't even that talented or popular beating him up after school every day.

So I know that I sure as hell wouldn't read anything this guy was even remotely involved with.  Well,  at least not on purpose.

But I did.  And I'm so glad I did.

This whiny, columbine-lookin' motherfucker is Gerard Way.  He's the singer of My Chemical Romance; the closest thing anybody's gotten to Queen since Freddie's mustache left us for a better place.

 And he wrote a comic.  It's called The Umbrella Academy.  His name is on the front, and the letters in the back even make reference to the term "rock star," but I had absolutely no reason to know who he was before reading this.  

 While I used to pick which comics I followed based upon the main characters, I later realized that the author brings (arguably) the most important aspect to any comic. 

 Now, I often find myself following  books and stories that I otherwise wouldn't have cared about based purely upon the writers.  So after looking this guy up,  I was really surprised to find out he hadn’t written anything else other than songs with titles like, “Early Sunset Over Monroeville.”

This is the first time that not knowing a writer’s name helped me find a new book.

But I feel like I should say at least something about the comic itself.  Since nerds like us always love describing things in vague, referential terms, The Umbrella Academy is kind of like if you mixed Generation X with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and stuck it into in the world of Hellboy.   

The final issue in The Umbrella Academy's 6 issue story, The Apocalypse Suite, ships Feb 20th.

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A Titan Rides the Train

I'm sure that any comic fan who is dependent on public transportation hates Wednesdays (or whenever they get around to picking up their four colored haul).

I'll elaborate on why for the automobile owners momentarily. First, let it be known that I'm not one of those self-deprecating comics fans who figured out in high school that you have to make fun of yourself before others can. I feel no shame towards reading comics, but I'll be damned if my fellow commuters don't try to grill it into me.

Seriously, reading a comic on a bus or train will have people looking at you as if you've made repeated guest appearances on To Catch a Predator.

I'm quite certain that a few women who were feeling me lost all interest the moment they spotted the Midtown Comics bag I was holding. They didn't see the newest issues of Action Comics or Hellboy in my hand. Instead they saw a giant copy of Big 'Uns (can I get a "whoa Bundy?").

Strangely enough, just as if I actually was rocking a porno mag, all the elitism in the world isn't going to stop them from trying to sneak a peak at what's going on between those pages. The interest is obviously there. Shit, I'm sure these same people had Heroes cued up on TIVO, the complete Buffy the Vampire DVD set, and saw 300 on the opening day.

At the end of a work day, I can't be concerned about what these closeted comic fans are thinking about me. I have a 2 hour commute, and best believe I'd rather break out my Birth of a Nation GN rather then reset my ipod's eternally dwindling battery for the fifth time that day.

...

Unless, of course, I'm sitting next to a remotely attractive woman. In that case I just may have to carry a sudoku book or something.

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