Guy LeCharles Gonzalez (aka glecharles) (aka loudpoet)

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

Review: El Zombo Fantasma (TPB)

Blame it on the Cartoon Network's Mucha Lucha for my even giving El Zombo Fantasma a second glance. Or credit it, depending, but if not for it, this book wouldn't have even registered on my radar and that would have been my loss. I'd never heard of El Zombo's original 3-issue run, published under Dark Horse's Rocket Comics imprint, but I've liked the [completely unrelated] cartoon the few times I've seen it, used to love wrestling back in the earliest days of Wrestlemania, and have been on a zombie/undead kick recently, so I was intrigued by both the cover and…

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

ménage à trois: 2/23/05

[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 light week for the Big Two, notable more for releases from their imprints than their mainstream line - sorry Morrison fans, I ain't jumping on that bandwagon! - so as a result, Vertigo and Icon step up this week with The Losers #21 and Powers #9, joined by a serious stretch of the "indie" definition with Conan #13.Judging from its sales numbers,…

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

Comment: Giving the People What They Want

Marvel EIC, Joe Quesada, and his main partner in crime, Brian Michael Bendis, caused a minor tempest in a teapot a couple of weeks ago during Newsarama's "Quesadarama" PR stunt that gave Quesada "control" of the site for the week. He posted an entertaining mix of informative and self-indulgent interviews with the likes of Kevin Smith, Allan Heinberg and, in a series of five installments, Bendis. During the third installment, the duo hypocritically riffed on the state of online journalism and the merits of Rich Johnston's rumor column, Lying in the Gutters, as well as the signal-to-noise ratio on various…

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

Review: Greg Rucka, Novelist

I first came across Greg Rucka's work in Gotham Central, during his Eisner Award-Winning "half a life" story arc (issues #6-10). In it, he puts his protagonist, Detective Renee Montoya, through the ringer in a well-paced, character-driven story of obsession and revenge. I'd only returned to comics less than six months prior at that point and was blown away by the difference in quality and style from the men-in-tights comics I'd grown up on and had initially sought out. Better yet, because Gotham Central takes place on the fringes of Batman's world, it was quality storytelling without the condescending pretension…

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

Retro: The Sentry (TPB)

I was still out of comics back in 2000 when Marvel pulled off its Sentry hoax, pretending to have discovered a Silver Age creation of Stan Lee's that pre-dated even the Fantastic Four, and getting that bastion of reputable comics journalism, Wizard, to go along with the stunt. Purportedly their answer to Superman, but with the personal foibles that were Marvel's forte, even Lee played along, claiming to remember shelving the character because he was "so powerful, he could very well have destroyed the entire Marvel Universe and everything we were planning." They even created, and then killed, a fictional…

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

Indie Spotlight: February 2005

[From the ridiculous to the random to the superb, a quick roundup of notable indie comics (aka, not Marvel or DC proper, though Vertigo, Icon, Image, et al, do qualify) I picked up in the past month. Release dates may vary.]Realizing a few weeks back that I didn't have a single Image title on my regular pull list, I decided to shine the spotlight squarely on them this month, taking a look at five of their newest books: Beyond Avalon, Freedom Force, Mora, and, via their Two Bits sampler, previews of The Imaginaries and Lullaby. A mixed bag overall, qualitatively…

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

ménage à trois: 2/16/05

[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.]It was all about the Distinguished Competition this week as Marvel's output was overshadowed by the terribly lame, terribly short-sighted conclusion to Mark Millar's "Enemy of the State" story arc in Wolverine. I'm officially boycotting anything he's involved with! Their one saving grace came thanks to Brian K. Vaughan and the first issue of Volume 2 of Runaways. On the flip side, a…

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