Guy LeCharles Gonzalez (aka glecharles) (aka loudpoet)

An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Retro: Orbiter (TPB)

Prior to 9/11, there were many who believed that my generation's defining moment happened on January 28, 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center, instantly killing all 7 crew members aboard, including the first teacher scheduled to fly in space, Sharon Christa McAuliffe. I was in 11th grade at the time and while it was definitely a notable moment, I recall feeling somewhat removed from it all, born a year and a half too late to have any memory of Neil Armstrong's historic walk on the moon and therefore lacking any real…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

ménage à trois: 3/16/05

[One Marvel, one DC, both published the previous Wednesday, plus a random indie from whenever I feel like it, each reviewed quickie-style: 1 Minute=bad, 10 Minutes=good. Connections, if any at all, may be forced purely for the experience.]A healthy week from the Big Two, including several of my regulars, along with a new issue of one of my overall favorites from Arcana headline an unusually expensive week as eBay and Top Shelf added to a heady mix of comic book gluttony. In this episode, the much-anticipated second issue of the new Black Panther is joined by an intense Teen Titans…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Interview: Fialkov on Elk’s Run

It's a sad fact in the comics industry today that succesfully launching a brand new title is a Herculean feat for the Big Two, requiring a massive marketing and promotion campaign with no guarantees of success. For independent publishers, it's a near impossible task. Even sadder is the fact that the lower half of the Diamond Top 100 - wholly dominated by mainstream super-heroes, historied licenses and/or A-list creators - typically bottoms out around 25,000 copies, making "successful" a somewhat relative term. So what to do when a really good comic book comes along, one not in the front of…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Review: Western Tales of Terror #1-3

Comic books I like generally fall into one of two primary categories: 1) well-written, character-driven fare (Gotham Central, Ex Machina); or, 2) old school, straight-up fun comics (Ezra, The Losers). A third category - the thought-provoking, big idea classic - is a rare treat that usually starts in one of the two other categories before transcending it.Hoarse and Buggy's Western Tales of Terror is a great example of that second category: old school, straight-up fun comics combining the peanut butter and chocolate of Cowboys and Zombies...and it's an anthology, to boot!Narrated by Pete, a sarcastic, foul-mouthed, undead cowboy - "I…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

ménage à trois: 3/9/05

[One Marvel, one DC, both published the previous Wednesday, plus a random indie from whenever I feel like it, each reviewed quickie-style: 1 Minute=bad, 10 Minutes=good. Connections, if any at all, may be forced purely for the experience.]When I first started this column, I figured finding a decent indie to review each week would be the hardest part, certain that my pull list included enough from the Big Two to not ever have to review consecutive issues of the same title. In fact, thanks to Midtown Comics, new indies have been pretty easy to track down each week. Some weeks,…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Comment: Making Comics Thin-Skinned

It's no secret that creative types can be pretty thin-skinned when it comes to their art, especially when they're in their early developmental stages. Personally, when I first got into the poetry slam scene - competitive poetry readings, for the uninitiated, where original poems are performed and then judged on a scale of 0-10 by five random members of the audience - I was pretty thin-skinned, ready to curse out, throw beers at, or fight judges who gave my poems low scores. After awhile, as happens to most poets on the scene, I matured, wrote and performed better poems, and…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Review: Comic Book Encyclopedia

When I was a kid, encyclopedias were often frustrating for their lack of depth or currency. These days, with the pervasiveness of the internet, the notion of a printed encyclopedia is about as practical as a hand-cranked engine. Nevertheless, Ron Goulart decided to go the throwback route anyway, and compiled his ambitious and admirable, if deeply flawed, Comic Book Encyclopedia.A visually appealing piece of work, like Frank Cho's unnecessary Shanna mini-series, there's three immediate signs of trouble before you even open the book. The boast of "nearly 400 big pages" is laughable when you consider the varied history of comics,…

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