Comic Book Review: Demonic #1- Conflicted Cop Drama #60,86,88,888,872,33

Writer: Christopher Sebela
Artist: Niko Walter
Publisher: Image
Release Date: 18th August 2016


I’m going to write a comic book. It’s going to be about a sexy demon girl telling a man to do bad things. What kind of man can I use for that purpose? He has to be a good man, a conflicted man, umm, how about a cop? Yeah, a homicide (that means murder) cop, and he can have a partner and they can banter like those television shows about cops, and the movies about cops and the books about cops, cops, cops, cops, cops, cops, cops everywhere, hunting serial killers and lone crazy nut people. Man, I love cops.

2nd panel featuring George Bush Jr and Condoleezza Rice 

Oh and if the lead cop is a white guy then I guess his partner will have to be black, and female, yeah, that’s progressive, that will do.

Okay then, so I have my cop character, I’ll make him look like Matt Damon and give him a tight T-shirt with biceps attached. Yeah he’s generic, 2-D paper-thin, but that doesn’t matter. I can flesh him out with a wife and young daughter, yeah, that will do.

Good guy, conflicted, and I don’t even have to do any research because, well, this guy, the conflicted cop guy with wife and young daughter is a big block of television cliché, done a million times to death already, which means that it works, so why do something new when something old always works so well?

Okay then, conflicted slab of generic with Morgan Freeman, female version partner, so far so blah. Umm, how is my sexy demon girl going to make captain cop generic do bad things? I know, make his daughter ill, that will do, daughters are always ill or kidnapped in television dramas, so I guess that we’ll start with ill, then throw in the kidnapping later.

The demon girl can get him to do bad stuff by promising to make his daughter not ill anymore and he can have the get out clause that he’s only doing it to bad people and it’s making his daughter not be all ill and stuff.

Crazy person cliche alert

Perfect, and throw in some serial killer axe murderer cult demonic clichés with a bucket of mangled body parts, guts and blood that you can only see in an ‘adult’ comic and we are off to the generic races of cliché demon, cop story irrelevance.

Err, what does this have to do with anything in the world today? Nothing, and to prove that I have nothing whatsoever to offer I’ll write the entire first issue with no mention of any modern technology.

That means no cell phones, no Internet, no Pokemon Go, nothing, just generic city murder stuff and bars where depressed men drink whiskey like a 70’s television cop show.

Man, I’m a genius. I love being a comic book writer in 2016, it’s the perfect place to hang out if you have absolutely nothing to say, and want to get paid in peanuts for the privilege of doing so.

I’m feeling really good about this one. I don’t want to jinx myself, but I see television deals in my very near future.

Ah, it’s good to be alive. I wonder what’s going on outside? Ah, who gives a crap, reality sucks anyway.

Rating: 1/10 (1 point for the cover)

50-Word (Comic) review: Symmetry #1- Individualism versus Collectivism

Writer: Matt Hawkins
Artist: Raffaele Ienco
Publisher: Top Cow/Image Comics
Released: 9th December 2015


Liberal writer takes his PC ideology, creates a progressive future for us all. Writes a socialist paradise of clones, controlled by hive-mind AI, free of individualism, slaves to the greater good, a nightmare liberal utopia. Is ‘Symmetry’ detailing a progressive mind breaking free from its cultural Marxist programming? We’ll see.



Rating: 8/10

A very intriguing beginning with a lefty comic book writer (yes, I know, they are all lefties today) exploring issues of individualism versus collectivism. 

It would be unwise to get too excited at this early stage, but I get the sense that writer Matt Hawkins has an open mind (and that is a rare thing in the left today) and is genuinely concerned about a utopian future created by the progressive/collectivist/totalitarian left.  

He’s looking at this future and seeing a lack of creative individualism (and as a creative man himself, why wouldn’t he?) and realising that perhaps this hive mind borg collectivist ideology is not as great as he had previously thought it to be. 

That’s the funny thing about creative liberals. They are a lot more individualistic and ‘right-wing’ than they think that they are, it’s just that they do one thing (using their individuality to create something new) and promote the direct opposite (calling for ideological collectivisation). 

The contradiction that is at the heart of cultural Marxist programming will finally be the thing that defeats it. As the progressive writers begin to understand just what it is that they have been promoting, they will inevitably turn against the narrow dictates of politically correct, collectivist, virtue signalling ideology, and start to get back onto the freedom train of individualism, creativity and human freedom. 

There’s a guy called Trump who is breaking down a few walls at the moment. He’s controversial. He’s brave, and he’s very, very popular. There is a reason for his popularity, and it’s not because his followers are all evil, racist, sexist bigots. The reason for his popularity is that he is an INDIVIDUAL battling against the status quo political ideology of COLLECTIVISM. You might not like Trump, but that’s not the point. The point is that we need to get back to individualism, and to leave this era of politically correct collectivism behind us. It’s dangerous, and we need to get rid of it.

50-Word (Comic) Review- The Goddamned #1: Violently naked, foul-mouthed and very, very good.

Writer: Jason Aaron
Art: R.M. Guera
Colours: Giulia Brusco
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 11th November 2015



Progressive PC infiltration destroyed my comic-book pull list, whittling it down to almost nothing. Just tell me a story, please, make it good, don’t rely on quips, and leave statism, feminism and collectivism out of it. That’s all that I want. Does this one do it? Surprisingly, yes, it does.



Rating: 9/10

I was in two minds about buying ‘The Goddamned #1’. Writer Jason Aaron, during his Marvel Thor run, wrote Thor as a soldier flying around the world (representing America) and fighting evil dictators. By doing so his Thor came to represent US imperialism, and gave credence to the lie that has justified the US setting the Middle East on fire and ‘accidentally’ creating ISIS. You know the lie, that wars happen because the ‘good guys’ (the US) want to make the world a better place, and to get rid of evil dictators. It’s a ridiculous lie, mainly because the US supports all sorts of crazy dictators (Saudi Arabia) all over the world and is more than happy to do business with them, and I don’t want to see it again in my comic books. We need to get beyond that very basic, dumbed down version of reality that is pushed on the mainstream media, and when I see mainstream idiot lies parroted in my comic books it instantly turns me off the books. There was also the fact that he turned the ultimate symbol of Norse masculinity (Thor) into a woman, thus bowing to the femiNazi’s who are doing a very good job of destroying mainstream comic books right now. Plus, I read the previews of this book, and because it’s a story about our pre-flood civilisation I figured that Aaron is bound to be a trendy liberal atheist and take the opportunity to cr*p all over the Bible. But now that I’ve read it, I’m glad that I took a risk and gave it a chance. The story, to sum it up very succinctly, reads like a Bible story with naked, violent, sweary blokes in it. There are no moments of social justice, no moments of PC pandering, and no moments of atheist having a go at God stuff. The main protagonist is Cain (the first murderer), the story is linear, easy to follow and interesting, and the art has great colouring and an edge to it that’s perfect for a brutal story about the moral decline of early man. The Goddamned #1 is about a time when things on Earth were so bad that God decided that he’d had enough of it all, and had to wipe the slate clean and start all over again. Look at the world today, and ask yourself this question: What must he think of us today? Anyway, it’s a top book, very good, and I enjoyed it very much. If you haven’t got it, get it. That’s it, end of review, thank you Mr. Aaron.

The Tithe #6- A Microcosm of the Insanity that is the Modern US Progressive Movement

Writer: Matt Hawkins
Co-Creator & Layouts: Rahsan Ekedal
Artist: Phillip Sevy
Publisher: Top Cow/Image Comics
Released: 21st October 2015



The unholy marriage between progressivism and Islam is exposed for all to see in this unintentionally hilarious, blind to reality, desperate not to offend PC comic book.

A violent hate mob of ignorant Islamaphobes.

I love it, I really do. This is a perfect case of giving a progressive US comic book writer lots and lots of rope, standing back and then watching as he trips, stumbles, falls on his arse, and inevitably ends up swinging from a noose of his own creation.

I don’t wish any misfortune on writer Matt Hawkins, I really don’t. I want him to keep on writing these comic books, to keep on talking down to his readers, and to keep on exposing the self-destructive madness that is at the heart of the US ‘progressive’ left.

In The Tithe #5 good old left thinking Matt engaged in classic, textbook progressive doublethink. He wrote a book about an Islamic suicide bomber blowing himself up in a Christian Church, but being a progressive type he couldn’t bring himself to blame Islam for the murderous event, so he did what any progressive would do in such a situation. Yes, he ended up blaming white, racist, far right Christian skinheads for the bombing instead.

Muslims would obviously never dream of doing such a dastardly deed. Of course not and all of the things that have happened in Syria and Libya over the past couple of years must be part of the right wing conspiracy as well, right?

The story in The Tithe #5 was outstandingly ‘progressive’ work from Mr.Hawkins, but he was missing that one vital ingredient in his politically correct cocktail. That ingredient is duly added in The Tithe #6. What ingredient am I talking about here? What is this progressive text missing?  Take a second, think about it, and then come back to this review.

What does every ‘progressive’ comic book need in 2015?

Oh no, that poor man. Who will save him?

If you guessed ‘Young woman of colour as heroic protagonist’ well done, because that’s exactly what is added in The Tithe #6.

Here she comes, the biggest cliché in contemporary comic books, jogging down the street, listening to feminist icon Beyonce, coming across a bunch of ignorant, racist ‘rednecks’ beating up a poor innocent Muslim, and jumping to his rescue with high kicks and empowered punches to the face. Oh, throw in the fact that she’s a Muslim, of course she is, and you have that progressive wet dream of a fictional character, the empowered Muslim girl fighting against evil, ignorant racists.

This empowered female Muslim character gets around quite a lot in comic books today, and she’s always fighting against evil men. Not Muslim men of course, she never does that, but she sure does know how to kick ignorant Christian butt. It's strange that, don't you think? Why is the liberal comic book world full of empowered Muslim girls who don't appear to be doing anything to stop what is happening within their own Muslim communities, preferring instead to kick a load of white guys around? Ummm, strange that, it's almost like comic book writers are trying to avoid something.

A couple of weeks ago the WWE toured Saudi Arabia. The female wrestlers did not attend the tour, and all of the shows played to male only audiences. Back home on US television the WWE continued to push it's female division as feminist icons for young girls to look up to, even though none of the female wrestlers said a word about not being allowed on the tour of Saudi Arabia. And what did feminists say about the WWE touring a country where females are not even allowed to drive a car? Absolutely nothing. That’s how pathetic it all is, and it just goes to show how blind to reality the modern feminist movement really is.

The progressive cliché heroine is the only addition to the narrative in 'The Tithe' this month, apart from a guest appearance by a right wing Donald Runsfeld look-alike politician. He’s the guy behind the skinheads, and his genius plan is to stage terrorist attacks all over the US in order to demonise the poor innocent, peace loving Muslims and to ensure he gets elected as the next US President.

Don't fret worried citizen, here comes liberal wet dream Girl.

I’m not joking here, that’s the actual story in The Tithe. This book is so ignorant to the reality behind extremist Islam (Sunni and Shiaa) that it cannot conceive that Islamic suicide bombers blow themselves up for the simple reason that they are faithful believers in the violently intolerant group-think, collectivist ideology that is the religion of Islam.

All of those beheadings and suicide bombings that we see every day on our television sets and all over the Internet in graphic detail, have nothing to do with Islam. No. It’s all a big right wing conspiracy of racist, sexist, white Christian lunatics, and as this book ‘progresses’ I’m sure that this devious plot will be uncovered by the progressive wet dream Muslim girl and her reluctant (he’s black, so he’s a good guy) cop father.

The whole thing is so completely ridiculous, not just because it flies in the face of reality, but because the FIRST people that would be blamed for any ‘Islamic’ terrorist attacks in the US right now would be right wing groups. It’s the first thing that would spring to the progressive mind, and that progressive mind is all over the mainstream media right now. It’s not a fringe belief, it’s the status quo consensus and it’s pushed by the corporate media on a hourly basis, not just in their ‘news’ reports, but all over their drama programming (usually about cops) as well.

Why do progressives always blame somebody other than Muslims whenever Muslims commit a terrible crime? For a recent example look at what happened in Israel last week with Palestinians randomly stabbing Israeli citizens in the streets. Look at who is getting the blame for that. It’s not the hate filled, knife wielding perpetuators, is it? No, it’s the Israeli’s who are getting the blame because they are defending themselves from getting stabbed.

That’s how ridiculous the progressive mind-set is. They have victim categories, and if you are not black, Islamic, female, gay, transgender, or whatever is trendy this week, then you must be part of some evil, sexist, right wing, patriarchal conspiracy, as is pushed in this comic book.

The progressive left doesn’t appear to understand that if Islam starts to have a major influence in the west (and that is the goal) then the first people to be targeted will be the progressive left themselves. All of the victim groups that they themselves are supposed to be championing would be hit the worst. I’m talking about women who disobey their husbands, atheists, new-agers, homosexuals and many of the other groups in the west that are currently enjoying freedoms that simply do not exist in the Islamic world.

Under Islamic law many of the freedoms that have been won from the tyranny of the state over hundreds of years of western civilisation would disappear overnight. That’s why the state loves progressivism, that’s why the television and newspapers push it, and that’s why we should be doing all that we can to stand up to it and call it out as the self destructive ideology that it is.

The sexy agents of the US police state.

The progressive mantra of ‘tolerance’ is opening up the western world to a group of people who are as intolerant as you can possibly get, so intolerant that they will chop your head off in the street if you disagree with them.

The marriage between Islam and progressivism then is completely one-sided, with the soft left welcoming a patriarchal death cult that will put them to death as soon as speak to them. It’s completely nuts, and that’s exactly the kind of suicidal mindset that is exposed for all to see within the pages of this painfully PC comic book.

I’ll conclude this review by restating something that I said at the beginning. I love it, I really do. This comic book is perfect, and long may it continue. What it is unwittingly doing is exposing the self-destructive unreality that is at the heart of politically correct, identity politics progressive ideology.

Matt Hawkins has been given some rope, and just look at what he’s done with it. Great job Matt, keep up the good work. What you are exposing here is vital, and your attitude of tolerance towards violent intolerance is a message that we all need to understand, correct, and start to do something about, something that involves defending ourselves, rather than waiting for the inevitable downward arc of the Jihadi Islamic blade.


Rating: 7/10 (A vital comic book that must be read in order to understand the insanity that is at the heart of the modern US progressive movement)


* Credit goes to writer Matt Hawkins (really) for pointing out the differences between Sunni (Saudi Arabia, ISIS, Wahabi, supported by the west) and Shia (Iran, supported by Russia, feared by Israel, for very good reasons). There is some real ignorance and street level bigotry caused by a confusion between the two sects, and some of this is explored within this comic book, though not in the detail that I would like, plus it's very convenient for narrative and ideological reasons as it frames 'rednecks' as ignorant people who don't know the difference between the two groups. The problem with Islam is not our ignorance between the two major groups, the problem is bigger than that. It's a problem of an entire group of people that want to completely change every single thing about western civilisation and the freedoms that we now have after hundreds and hundreds of years fighting against the state, usually backed up by the collectivist ideology of religion.  Islam is a backwards, intolerant religion that does not respect women's rights and the right of the individual to live his life free from the collective ideology of religion. Islam is a step backwards, and the west needs to be very, very careful with it.

Saints #1- Fifty-Word Review: When everything is a joke, nothing is important

Writer: Sean Lewis
Artist: Benjamin Mackey
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: 7th October 2015



Intriguing, interesting narrative idea spoilt by quips, one-liners, cuteness, knowing jokes and going for cool, style over substance, diminishing effect of narrative potential, end result irrelevant cool and irritation of this reader. Cool turns story soft, flabby, loses impact. Could have been good. I wanted it to be. It isn’t.


Rating: 4/10 

(Muddled book about a rock band, saints and the devil. Could have been something, but it falls into the same trap of a lot of contemporary comic book media, thinking that one-liners and cleverness is more important than telling an involving story with emotional/intellectual resonance. It’s a shame. There’s a good idea here, but the character dialogue is far too quippy and irreverent, diminishing any impact that the story could have had, turning everything that happens into an inconsequential joke. A book with a muddled tone is a failure. The reader doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be, and thus, it ends up being nothing.)

Comic review: the Tithe #5- Islamic Extremism and the ‘Progressive’ Left

Writer: Matt Hawkins
Co-Creator: Rahsan Ekedal
Artist: Phillip Sevy
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 23rd September 2015


****SPOILERS IN REVIEW****


I need to add a few disclaimers before I start off this review. Firstly, I haven’t been reading ‘The Tithe.’ I bought this issue because the preview mentioned ‘Islamaphobia’ and that intrigued me, as Islam is rarely mentioned in contemporary comic books. Secondly, I assumed that the comic book would address all issues concerning Islamic terrorism from a secular, atheist, liberal/progressive point of view, with an attempt to minimise the personal responsibility of the individuals actually involved in recent terrorist outrages.

I made a lot of assumptions, but after reading this book those assumptions turned out to be pretty much spot on. That’s not me patting myself on the back, it’s just that I read a lot of comics, and as 95% of contemporary comic books come from a liberal/progressive mind-set and world-view, I pretty much know what I will be getting before I actually read the books.

The beginning of this book really shocked me though. It started with a quotation coming directly from the Koran, a quotation that gives valuable insight into what Muslims are taught to think of Jews and Christians by their holy book. Does it teach them about tolerance and respect? Nope, it doesn’t. It tells Muslims that they cannot be friends with either Jews or Christians. That’s a fact, it comes from the Koran, and to see it as an opening statement in a comic book was quite shocking to me.

The narrative of the book itself then proceeds to show a young Syrian immigrant shouting‘Allahu Akbar’ in a church as he detonates a suicide vest, blowing himself up, and murdering hundreds of innocent people.  This immigrant had been taken in by a Christian family, so what he is doing here ties into the concerns of many Europeans at the moment as refugees descend upon the west, escaping from the conflicts in their own war torn countries.

The fear in many European countries right now is not just about terrorism. It’s about the impact of an entire culture, a culture that is not exactly liberal when it comes to anything to do with women’s rights and homosexuality. Surely there will be tensions? What will happen when you have entire communities of people that oppose the very laws of the land in which they live? These concerns are not addressed within this comic book, but the first one is, that being the concern that Muslim refuges are potential suicide bombers, and that the more we let in, the more chances there will be of horrific events happening in our local Churches, sports stadiums and supermarkets.

I understand the concern because I’ve actually lived in Saudi Arabia, the spiritual, ideological and financial home of all things related to Sunni terrorism. If you want to know anything about Sunni terrorism then go to Saudi Arabia, that’s where the 9/11 hijackers came from, it’s where Osama Bin laden came from, and it’s where the funding behind ISIS comes from as well.

When it comes to Sunni terrorism, all roads lead to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi’s fund terrorism, and are encouraged to do so as the main enemy of the west is not Sunni terror, it’s the Shia states, with the main villain, and eventual target, being Iran. Syria first, and it’s Iran that will be next on the chopping block.

Western governments support Sunni extremism today, just as they did in the 1980’s when they supported a young Bin Laden in his fight against the Russians in Afghanistan. Our governments are always eager to help out Sunni terrorists, as they give them a reason for the ever-expanding Police/surveillance state back home, and an excuse for wars for resources in the Middle East and Africa.

But back to the story in ‘The Tithe #5.’ After reading a plot that began leaning suspiciously to the right, I knew that the progressive side of the writer had to kick-in at any moment, unless of course this was the rarest of all things in 2015, that being a right leaning comic book writer? Is writer Matt Hawkins one of those rare creatures?

Nope, don’t be daft, of course he’s not. There’s no room for the evil right wing in comic books at the moment. When it comes to contemporary comic book writers, they are as left leaning as you can possibly get. It took a while, but the left wing side of Matt’s nature finally kicked in, and boy, when it did, what a laugh it all was.

***HERE COME THE PLOT SPOILERS***

Writer Matt Hawkins was absolutely brilliant in what he did here, and a real credit to the liberal progressive left. His story began with a suicide bombing in a church, and by the end of it he had managed to put the entirety of the blame for the atrocity onto right-wing, white, Christian men. I’m not joking. The final panels of this book include an evil white skinhead leaving a Church and laughing about his actions designed to stitch up the poor innocent Muslims. The final panel of the book features this evil white man framed with a giant crucifix in the background as he walks away from his base of operations, that being a Christian church.

The message is clear. Islam is a peaceful religion, and the terrorist events that you see around the world are part of some weird right wing conspiracy carried out by crazy skin-headed Christians.

Great work Matt, I really applaud your dedication to the cause of never offending people who strap bombs to themselves in order to further their sick, demented and twisted ideological agenda. Your determination to blame all of the ills of the world on the most politically expedient group out there today (right wing Christians) was particularly brave of you as well. Good job mate, good job.

The Tithe #5 then is not quite as controversial as you might think that it is. I applaud it for addressing the big Wahabbi Elephant in the living-room, a violently stampeding Elephant that is completely ignored by DC and Marvel, but what I have read here comes from a painfully liberal, laughably progressive mind-set.

This PC mind-set goes out of it’s way not to offend, and puts the blame for a Islamic terrorist event onto the easiest, softest of all targets, that being white Christian men. In doing so it comes across as a bizarre, politically correct, left leaning conspiracy theory book. It brings up real world concerns about Islamic terrorism, then takes the easy way out by placing the blame upon a group that has nothing whatsoever to do with Islamic terrorism.

It’s usually the right that gets accused of conspiracy theory paranoia, but this book proves that when it comes to ridiculous conspiracy theories, the ‘progressive’ left is fast catching up and becoming even more insane and wilfully ignorant than the old right.


Rating: 7/10 (I applaud writer Matt Hawkins for dealing with issues that most writers choose to ignore, but his conclusion that Islamic terrorism is actually a right wing/Christian conspiracy is absolutely ridiculous)

Comic review: Tokyo Ghost #1- Old Man Fear

Writer: Rick Remender
Artist: Sean Murphy
Creators: Remender/Murphy
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 16th September 2015


I used to love Stephen King, but the last book that I read coming from his ever-prolific mind was about cell-phones and how people will turn into zombies if they use them too much. The idea was dull, easy, and I expected better out of King. I read the entire book and my lasting impression was of an out of touch, out of ideas, old man, looking at the world outside of his mansion, and having a bit of a ill-considered, lazy moan about it all.

That book was called ‘Cell,’ and this book by Rick Remender, is pretty much the same thing. It is drenched in ‘cool,’ with a cool name, a cool protagonist and cool artwork, but the mind-set that it’s all coming from is pretty much the same as Cell. The difference is slight. Cell was about cell-phones making people violently anti-social, whilst ‘Tokyo Ghost’ (see, told you it was cool) is about computer games and the Internet making people violently anti-social.

I’m calling BS on the entire idea that modern technology is making us violent and anti-social, not because I like modern technology, but because I remember the time when all of this technology didn’t exist, and here’s the truth, people were just as anti-social back then, and a whole lot more violent as well.

The only difference between now and 1991 is that in 1991 people hid behind books, Walkmen, newspapers and magazines, whilst today they hide behind iphones. People in big cities ignore each other. That’s how it has always been. If you want some social interaction then move to a small village where people still talk to each other. It’s not about technology. It's about the modern capitalist rat race life, and urban isolation. The violence in these books is just for dramatic effect. It makes the story more exciting, that's why it's there. In the real world it's the isolation that gets you, not the violence, which is actually quite rare today in comparison to the recent past.

Having rejected the initial premise I’m left to fall back on the characters within the book to get some enjoyment out of it. Unfortunately the main protagonist is that ubiquitous protagonist that you always get in comic books these days, that being the attractive young female (normally a cop, or special agent, as she is here) who goes around beating up intolerant, racist, sexist men. In this book we have another perfect specimen of a middle aged writers PC mind, outfitted in hotpants, with the requisite punk haircut and a good line in banter as she roars up and down the highstreet dispensing instant justice to all of the nasty men that she finds. She has a boyfriend in tow, he sucks, and it’s her job to rescue him from not sucking anymore. This boyfriend is a stand-in for an on-line gamer, so the message is clear. Boys suck, they spend too much time on the internet playing computer games, and it’s up to their social justice warrior perfect girlfriends to save them from themselves.

This protagonist girl (I forget her name, but she’s pretty much identical to Tank Girl from the early 1990’s) is the only person in old Rick’s universe that is not plugged into the Internet. Strange that, because in the world that I live, the most plugged in people to the Internet are not men, but young girls. Men are starting to abandon the Internet, and it’s the females that are stuck to it like wars to a government, but you’re not going to see that reflected in a comic book, because in the world of PC delusion the saviours of the world are always pretty young girls.

The most asleep, clueless, half-witted people on the planet today are social science educated young, feminist, liberal girls. They see none of the tyranny of our times, and are used to divide and conquer the population with identity politics nonsense. Their ideology comes from government approved university Marxism, an ideology that reduces everything to class, skin colour, gender and sexuality, thus missing all of the important issues that we need to sort out in order to enact some real change in the rapidly declining western world.

So, yes, I’m fed up of seeing pretty young girls portrayed as saviours in my comic books when in the real world they are anything but.

Rant over, I’ll try to be nice now. So why would anybody like, or enjoy Tokyo Ghost?

I know why. I do. People will like the art, and they will think that it’s addressing important issues about technology and how it’s isolating us from ourselves. They’ll think it’s smart, funny, cool and fun.

I (obviously) have a different opinion on the book. My opinion is that it’s liberal tosh drenched in cool, that says nothing, has a wonky premise, and features a generic protagonist that you’ll find in just about every other ‘independent’ comic book on the market today. So, is it worth buying? If you are a feminist liberal type, yes, go for it. However, for anybody else, for anybody that has broken free from the mainstream paradigm of feminist liberalism, don’t bother, it will annoy the crap out of you, and will make you long for the good old days when comic books still had genuine diversity, and when Stephen King still pumped out genuinely exciting, fresh, insightful and enjoyable books.



Rating: 5/10 (Dripping with generic cool, and not half as clever as it thinks that it is)


 Special thanks to John at the Incredible Comic Book Shop for recommending this book to me. I didn’t like it, but I got a lot out of it, and it gave me perfect ranting material, thanks mate. 
https://www.facebook.com/TheIncredibleComicShop

Comic review: The Covenant #3- Bible story kicks superhero butt

Created and written by: Rob Liefeld
Illustrated by: Matt Horak
Coloured by: Ross Hughes
Lettered by: Chris Eliopolous
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 26th August 2015


The Covenant #3 is doing what I like my comic books to do. It’s keeping it simple, letting the story unfold and keeping the readers thrilled, excited and in eager anticipation for what is to come next.

They didn’t teach Bible stories at my school, and I never knew what I was missing out on. This story is a superhero story, with all of the constituents that you need to excel within that genre. It has bloodthirsty evil villains, brave heroes and a supernatural angle that makes you think that the humans might be the players, but there’s a bigger game going on here.

The Covenant is a comic book that brings God back into play, in a world that no longer believes in him. I like that. I like the fact that it’s so different, that it’s going against the mainstream atheist grain and telling a fascinating story about the history of the ancient Israelite and Philistine people.

This story can be given to children, but it’s not childish. The art helps a lot. It’s big, bold and uncluttered. It matches the script, which has the same uncluttered qualities. There is nothing needlessly ‘clever’ or ‘ironic’ or Kevin Smith post-modern about this book. It’s a good story, simply told, and clearly illustrated and, dare I say the word, educational.

It’s giving me fascinating, valuable insight into Biblical history, and I’m very appreciative of all of the people that have spent their time and energies on producing the book.

I’m being sincere here. Guys, thank you.

Three issues in and The Covenant is fast becoming my most anticipated book of the month. I shouldn’t be enjoying a story based on a Biblical narrative so much, but I am, it’s as simple as that.

There’s no feeling of emptiness here, a feeling I too often experience after reading mainstream superhero comic books. This is a story that resonates, and I’m enjoying every single second of the time that I spend with it. The Covenant is a Bible story that makes me want to know more about the Bible. It’s great, sorry atheist nation, but it is.


Rating: 10/10 (Revelatory Bible story that reads like a contemporary superhero tale)

Comic review: Black Science #16- The death of a pointless comic book

Writer: Rick Remender
Artist: Matteo Scalera
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 8th July 2015



Black Science #16 begins with the main protagonist feeling like everything he has ever done in his life has been:

‘One giant fn waste of time.’

Decent art, blah book.

I know exactly how he feels. I’ve been reading this book for sixteen issues now, and I don't understand why I bothered with it in the first place.

The overall message of Black Science #16 is that you shouldn’t bother doing ANYTHING. If you try to do something extraordinary then bad things will happen to you.

Therefore, you might as well spend your life in safety, living in the suburbs with your wife and kids, going to their baseball games, not spending too much time at work, and keeping your head down in order to have a safe, unexciting and uneventful life.

Whenever I read this book I read the writer, not the characters. That’s not good.

I read the characters and I see familiar clichés and a guy heading up a creative writing course, showing you how to put the pieces into place, but with no real desire to say anything dangerous or to kick against a system that he’s perfectly happy with.

I read a guy with a comfortable career, and a nice wife and kids at home, so why cause trouble when tea is ready at five and the grass needs to be mown before suppertime?

There’s nothing wrong with that kind of life, but when that mentality seeps through into the comic book narrative it doesn’t exactly set my world on fire.

How could it?

What I am reading in Black Science is a desire to compromise and to play it safe. Okay Rick, play it safe, I wish you the best, but you are writing safety when I want revolution, and as I see a world badly in need of revolution, not safety and compromise, why should I keep on reading your safety, career and suburban isolation comic book narratives?

Middle aged bloke + girl to have affair with.

Rick won’t respond, and why should he? He’s doing fine, and I’m just a no-nothing guy on the Internet. He’ll keep on pumping out this stuff, and his name alone will keep on selling these mediocre narratives for a good few years yet, so why should he change?

I don’t hate the book, but it’s just a book, just another comic book sci-fi narrative, that reflects nothing, and so, why should I bother with it?

I can’t find a reason to care about this book anymore, so after sixteen issues of reading it, I’m off.

How do I feel about the experience?

I feel like it was a waste of my time, and a waste of my money, but no hard feelings.

Oh well, that’s old Rick off my list then, let’s see if I can find a writer who has something to say, and is desperate, no matter what the cost, to say it.


Rating: 5/10 (A well constructed comic book, but ultimately, it’s pointless)

Review: The Covenant #2- A Godless Society is a Vulnerable Society

Writer: Rob Liefeld
Artist: Matt Horak
Colours: Jeremy Colwell
Letters: Chris Eliopolous
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 8th July 2015



I found issue #2 of The Covenant to be far more accessible, easy to read, and enjoyable than issue #1. The narrative is linear, uncluttered and concise, so when events unfold it’s easy to correlate cause and effect, and to enjoy it as it happens.

The theme of the book is about what happens to a people when they become decadent, complacent and lose their faith in God. Loss of faith brings judgement onto a people. A people without faith are weakened and vulnerable to attack. Enemies seize on this weakness and take what is most precious to that people. In this book it is the powerful military weapon, the Ark of the Covenant.

The Ark of the Covenant

The ark is a devastating weapon on the battlefield. The Hebrew people have used it before, and it has always given them victory, but this time it fails them. They call on its power, but it does not respond. Its carriers are slain, and the ark is captured, taken from the battlefield, and is now in possession of the snake-worshipping enemy of the Hebrews, the Philistines.

‘The ark is but a symbol. Without faith it is an empty vessel.’

The Hebrew people lost faith, and so their great weapon no longer protected them, that is why it was taken, that is why it did not work as it did before. A faithless people that has abandoned their God will no longer be protected, and they will become vulnerable to the enemies that were previously defeated through the power of faith.

Sounds fair to me.

Issue #2 of the Covenant concludes with the defeated Hebrews re-evaluating their defeat, appointing a new leader, and plotting to regain the ark, but will it ever work again for a faithless people who have deserted their God?

We’ll see, and as I’m not as familiar with this Bible story as I want to be, I cannot wait to see what happens next in this fascinating and massively insightful historical story.

I’m very much enjoying this book. It’s teaching me a lot, and as a child raised in a secular/atheistic society I very much appreciate having Bible stories in comic book form where I can read, learn and enjoy the many moral, philosophical and spiritual lessons that were absent in my early life.

The art by Matt Horak helps tremendously, and when I purchased the book today in my comic book shop, the guy working there (Hi Troy) commented that the art looks like some of Becky Cloonan’s friendly faced, accessibly cute work. I agree. It does look like some of Cloonan’s cute and cuddly art-work, and that is a huge plus as it brings an element of accessibility to the book, injecting a ‘fun’ factor that might have been lacking if the art had a darker, ‘edgier’ feel to it.

Because of the accessibility of the artwork you can read ‘The Covenant’ just as you would read any other contemporary, mainstream superhero book. The added benefit is that you are getting a story that is saying something important about man and his relationship with God, and not just another feminist leaning social justice warrior comic book that is pushing politically correct stories that have zero relevance to anybody.

I understand all too well that the atheist, Dawkins reading, arrogant, dismissive, patronising, science knows best, Marxist, feminist, liberal, progressive comic book readers (and that’s 90% of them today) won’t even consider reading a comic book that is based on a Bible story. That’s their loss. I hope they enjoy their teen girl superhero books, but I’m after something with a bit more depth and meaning these days, and a comic book like ‘The Covenant #2’ is perfect for me.

If you take a chance on this book you’ll get some great art and a story that shows the inevitable consequences that will befall a society when secularism, greed and commerce become the driving motivations behind human interaction. Nothing is new under the sun, and what happened before will surely happen again. That’s a lesson that we need to relearn, and that’s the lesson that is being re-told in this essential comic book.



Rating: 10/10 (Insightful, accessible and enjoyable)

Review: We Stand On Guard #1: Guaranteed not to offend

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Steve Skroce
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 1st July 2015


The previews to this book looked very promising. I picked it up hoping for something controversial, something that would upset people, and something that would go to the dangerous places where other comic books fear to tread.

I’m a bit of a sucker, aren’t I?

Okay, so, first off, ‘We Stand On Guard’ is a masterpiece of political correctness, of how to write a comic book that is guaranteed to offend absolutely nobody. That’s not a criticism, it’s the best thing about the book, how it manages to exist, and be so meek and compliant. If you want to know how to have a career as a comic book writer in these PC times, then this is the book that you’ll want to study, and emulate. It’s more impressive because it has the US as the villains, yet does it in a way that won’t upset Americans, or anybody else in the world.

The book starts with the cliché of the White House being blown up, and then attempts to subvert that cliché through point of view, having a Canadian family look at it on their television, then having the US retaliate by blowing said family up.

I have a few points to make about this opening scene, as it sets the tone for the rest of the book, and no doubt, the entire series. Firstly, when the Canadian family are speculating about who is responsible for blowing up the White House they very noticeable fail to bring up the two obvious suspects- 1: Islamic extremists. 2: Sections of the US intelligence agency apparatus, a false flag, hitting yourself in order to justify foreign wars (see 9/11 for more details).

The book is set in 2112, so I guess that means that all of the problems that we have today with the peaceful, tolerant religion of Islam have disappeared? I guess that also means that the CIA no longer exists, and that false flag attacks no longer happen? It’s either that, or writer Brian K. Vaughan is being very careful, and very mainstream in his writing.

So, if it’s not Islamic extremists or a false flag attack who is responsible for blowing up the White House? Candidates are Algiers (is that the new capital of the Islamic state?), domestic terrorists (again, no religion mentioned) or Canadians?

It’s not exactly a very controversial list, is it? That list alone should tell you everything that you need to know about this comic book. It’s going to be a very careful book, a PC book, a book that will wash over you, and do nothing, because it’s not trying to do anything except shift units, and not offend.

Canada versus America one hundred plus years from now is as safe as you can get. I’m not reading a safe book. I want to read a book that sticks its neck out, and I’m not going to get that here.

Let’s look at the characters. All of the leaders are young women. Men are followers, missing, dead or expendable. On page seven a father dies. His last words are for his son to protect his young daughter. The story shoots forward to the future, and the son is missing, the daughter is looking after herself. She is strong, self-sufficient, independent, young, feisty sexy, and the main point of view protagonist in the book, of course she is, that goes without saying. Rebellion is the sole domain of pretty young girls in contemporary comic books, false rebellion of course, but that’s the only rebellion that exists today in the corporate mainstream.

This generic comic book protagonist pretty young girl is alone for only a couple of pages before she hooks up with a group of Canadian freedom fighters, led by another young female, of course, and you know exactly what you are going to get in this comic book. More feminism, more male/female power dynamics reversed, and more of the neoliberal corporate consensus, dressed up as equality, pushed as the new norm, and if you don’t like it, send in the social justice warriors.

We Stand On Guard #1 is a neoliberal consensus politically correct comic book. If that’s your thing, buy it. It’s not my thing, so I’m one and out on this one. I need more than safe in my comic books today. This comic book is safe, and it doesn’t interest me at all.


Rating: 3/10 (A case study in how not to offend)

Drifter Vol 1- Out Of The Night- Graphic Novel Review- Lost In Space

Writer: Ivan Brandon

Artist: Nic Klein

Publisher: Image Comics

Released: June 2015

Drifter takes the tried and trusted old lost in space idea, throws in a disorientating and deliberately abstract narrative and aims to intrigue the reader, hook him, and keep him there for the duration of the story. Keep reading, keep buying, and we’ll let you know what is going on at the end of the book. You know how it works.

The narrative is focussed on a confused newcomer to a weird sci-fi space place. His ship crashes, things are hazy, he doesn’t know what happened to sections of time, and as the reader follows his tale it’s clear that this confusion is meant to titillate, to get you to speculate about what has happened, and what is now currently happening. Annoyed or intrigued? It’s a fine line, and the book often tumbles over into the annoying category. 

A feeling of cool detachment permeates the book, and the dialogue often reads as fragments of drunken poetry, of a writer more interested in saying something that sounds good, rather than something that is going to help the reader understand his narrative. It’s a reader unfriendly book, it’s going to do what it wants, and if you can make something out of it, then good luck with that. There’s a story here, but writer Ivan Brandon is not going to make it easy for you.

The characters are not as strange as they first appear. They are neoliberal standards, the kind of characters that you always see in contemporary comic books. There’s the punk haired tough teen girl who acts like a man. There’s the crazed Christian (It’s always a crazed Christian, never a crazed Jew or Muslim). There’s the weirdly tough and independent adolescent girl, a standard now, as kids are being taught to accept a new world order where Daddy will no longer have a role. She follows a reluctant father figure, a stand-in for the absent father choosing to run away from his children, a worryingly consistent narrative aspect of our times, at least in works of fiction. Your father has abandoned you kids, now run into the loving arms of Big Daddy State. 

The main protagonist is adrift. A man alone dumped onto a strange new world. I found no substance to him. He misses his girlfriend, doesn’t smile, and lashes out with violence, but his main role is to serve the story, and to unravel the mystery behind the narrative. He’s a blank page, and it’s hard to empathise with a blank page.

Drifter Vol. 1- Out of the Night has a lot of intrigue cool, but it’s dense, trying to be something more than it is by hiding the narrative within hazy narration and character dialogue and memory loss scenarios in the plot-line. It irritated me. There was a lot of cleverness going on, but not a lot of insight or narrative clarity. I like a good story, well told, not a confusing one, abstractly told. 

There was something annoyingly student art project about it. It’s trying to be clever, trying to impress, when all I really wanted was a good story that I could jump into and enjoy. The story is a tease, and I get suspicious about these kinds of stories. They tease, and tease and tease, stringing you on for as long as possible, and then when they finally do reveal what it was all about, it’s not very exciting, revelatory or revolutionary anyway. It’s just another book, and now you have 25 issues of it, 25 issues where you kept reading on, hoping for an answer, and when it finally comes, you find that it wasn’t worth all the time (and money) spent investing in it anyway.  

I got this book for just over a fiver, and I read it all in just over twenty minutes, so I don’t feel conned by it. I feel a bit confused, but that’s the point of the book. It wants to keep you confused so you’ll keep on buying it. I won’t be doing that. There’s not enough here for me to invest in. The characters are either too familiar (in a fictional sense) or not developed enough for me to care about them. It has a cool factor about it, but that’s a huge turn-off for me these days.

I’m starting to despise cool. Cool is for the young. I’m past caring about cool. I have no use for it anymore. The youthful obsession and deception of cool no longer appeals. Drifter is okay. It’s a book that attempts to intrigue and have the reader follow along in hopes of a bombshell explanation at the end of the narrative. It doesn’t quite work for me, but I didn’t hate it.

Rating: 6/10 (Obtuse sci-fi book that is not quite as intriguing as it wants to be)

Comic Review: The Covenant #1- A Blood Thirsty Cult & the Original Biblical WMD

Writer: ROB LIEFELD
Art: MATT HORAK
Publisher: Image comics
Release Date: 6th June 2015


I enjoyed this book very much, even though it’s narrative construction initially confused me. It begins with talk of the Ark of the Covenant being stolen by the Philistines, and a rescue attempt being planned. It then switches to a history of the Israelites/Hebrews, their exodus, Moses, the Ten Commandments, and the construction of the Ark that contains those commandments.

The book then proceeds to demonstrate the destructive power of the Ark, winning battle after battle, tearing down walls, and safeguarding the Hebrew people. It’s all done in an exciting way and drawn with a style that comes across more superhero than Bible story. It’s not all one point of view though. The Philistines themselves are personalised, and their individual intrigues are explored, as are their motivations for war against the Hebrews.

The book concludes with talk of a ‘Siege,’ so I guess the opening narrative with a small team of Hebrews looking to regain their lost Ark was set AFTER this siege, and that the Ark will be lost during it?

The story then will explore how the Hebrews lost the Ark, and then follow them as they attempt to reclaim it? I think this is what is happening, but it wasn’t easy to decipher, and that’s a problem. It should be easy, and I shouldn’t have to re-read the book just to make sure that I understand what is going on.

Despite the confusion, I’ll keep on reading, as this Bible influenced story intrigued me, a lot. It’s a tale about a decadent society growing complacent and abandoning their God. This sounds very familiar to me. It’s a tale not just of the past, but a tale about humanity as it is today.

What happens to a society when it abandons God? What happens when people work for market forces, and religion is bypassed, treated as a story, as a myth to be told to children?  How can such a people hope to survive, and do they even deserve to survive when all spirituality has been sucked from them, replaced by commerce, greed and complacency?

Does the following scenario sound familiar to you?

A largely Godless society is threatened by a bloodthirsty, human sacrificing, conquest hungry cult of religious maniacs. What should be done, and what would happen if that cult of maniacs got their hands on a weapon of mass destruction?

Was that controversial? Good, it was supposed to be. The scenario is not the latest news coming out of the Middle East, although it certainly does sound like it, doesn’t it? No, that scenario is what is being explored within the pages of this comic book.

In other words, ‘The Covenant #1’ is a mirror on the past that is showing us what is happening in the world today, and that is why it is must buy comic book.

I wish it success, and hope that people will give it a chance.

It can be read in a couple of ways. On the surface it’s an action packed comic book with mighty heroes and dastardly villains, with blood, swords and muscles and scenes of brutality and amazing weapons of supernatural magic. But it’s also a book about the waning influence of God, about secularism, about a bloodthirsty cult getting their hands on a weapon of mass destruction, and a small group of heroes looking to retrieve not just that weapon, but the influence of God on their complacent and decadent society.

The past is alive in this book, buy it now, it has something to say, and as anybody that reads comic books in 2015 is all too aware of, having something to say is a rarity in comic books today.


Rating: 9/10 (A brutal, action packed book about heroes, villains and a biblical weapon of mass destruction)

Comic Review: Material #1- Slaves to the Wage

Writer: Ales Kot
Artist: Will Tempest
Contributing Author: Fiona Duncan
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 27th May 2015


There’s a long essay at the end of this book, and it goes on and on and on. Self-obsession, sex references, Marxism and a bit of moaning about neo-liberal capitalism are the themes, but does it really say anything?

I was going to do a short review on this comic book, keeping it simple, unlike that long essay, but as I was writing this review I answered my own question about whether or not that essay actually said anything, and I changed my mind about a couple of things.

Don’t be confused, this won’t be complex. I’m a simpleton, so don’t worry about not being able to understand what I’m going to go on about here. What I have to say about the essay ties in with the themes of this book, so I’ll discuss those themes first.

Material #1 is about unsatisfied, depressed, confused, traumatised, disaffected people.

There’s a Chomsky like professor who is sad, as I expect the real Chomsky to be as well. After all, being a careerist gatekeeper to real truth can’t be that much fun, can it? This professor talks his theories, but is in the process of questioning reality itself.

There’s a girl, an actress, she takes drugs, is creative, and self obsessed. A director wants to make a movie about her. Why? What’s going on here? We’ll find out at as the book progresses.

Next we get some ‘I can’t breathe’ panels of horribleness, with some order followers doing what order followers always do, and a young boy possibly being radicalised by the control system that shouldn’t be as he witnesses scenes of order follower (cop) violence.

Next there is some sex stuff that involves a bloke released from Gitmo. He’s innocent, messed up, and it’s sex stuff. He’s sad and confused, as you would expect him to be, but the sex stuff felt a bit over the top, a bit too outrageous, just for the sake of being outrageous, but that’s opinion. I’m not a fan of the weird sex stuff in ‘adult’ comics. Bottom line, I don’t think that it’s necessary.

Then we get some real world horribleness again, with some panels showing a young boy being interrogated in that Chicago black site called ‘Homan Square.’ Hey, it’s order followers just doing what they do. You vote for a master, you get a goon in a black uniform that’s how it works. That’s democracy, suckers.

Then Chomsky (his name is Julius Shore in this book) gets an email. The email claims to be from the, ‘First artificial human intelligence on earth,’ and finally, amidst the sex stuff and sadness we have some semblance of plot. There’s no connection between the characters as of yet, but at least something interesting appears to be happening.

The book then goes to the self obsessed girl and her movie, hints more about the radicalisation of the young boy, and concludes with the sad Gitmo bloke wanting to have a chat with the girl he pays for sex. It’s a weird ending, but then again, I guess it was supposed to be.

So, what do I make of it all? Look at the subject matter: Gitmo, Police brutality, the radicalisation of youth, useless academic careerism, human life being defined by ‘Market Value,’ and the vague notion that things have to change, if not, we might as well not bother getting out of bed in the morning.

That’s my kind of stuff, the kind of stuff that I talk about on my blog, and in real life, and the kind of stuff that results in one overwhelming reaction.

That reaction being, indifference.

I’m a reality junkie, writing about a genre (comic books) that has an audience of hard working people, busy people (it’s a theme in this book) that have no time for my reality/truth nonsense, and would rather spend their free time reading about superheroes, and cool stuff that reminds them of when they were happy, when they were children.

I can understand that. I can understand the need to escape for ten minutes from a life that sucks. People that know me in the real world, the people that I meet at work and out and about, they don’t really like me. I know. It’s no secret. I’m not a popular guy.

People see me as somebody with too much time on his hands. They see me as somebody who does too much thinking, and not enough working. They dislike me because I jumped off the career, jumped off relationships, jumped off of the endlessly moving airport treadmill (goes back and forwards, but never up) way of living my life. They would like me more if I was more like them, if I stopped writing, stopped thinking, and instead spent all of my day working in a job, any job, just as long as I don’t have this wicked ‘too much time’ on my hands.

That is a mindset, and it’s nicely summed up by writer Fiona Duncan in her essay at the conclusion of this book. (Fooled you. I didn’t hate it. I just thought that it was too long). Here we go:

‘Everything has to be sacrificed to an abstract growth of money, and of value, of nothing. This is madness. This philosophy of the deregulated (neo-liberal) economy where everybody is demanded to give CEASELESSLY in order to survive.’

She borrows quotations from a Marxist (Boo) academic called Francis ‘Bifo’ Berardi, to make her point, but even though I have no time whatsoever for dusty old discredited Marxists, I have to recognise a point well made.

The problem that we have (as a whole) is a mindset problem. We have been taught through our schooling and mainstream media programming (funded by the neoliberal, free-market rulers of our time) that our value as people lies not in our actual inherent qualities as decent, moral human beings, but in our ability to maximise our own profit potentials.

This has turned money into a god, and humanity into a slave to that false god. I talk about the New World Order, and people hate me for it. I talk about governmental control systems (like Marxism) and people hate me for it. They want me to shut up, get a proper career job and to stop talking, please stop talking, just stop talking. They want me to join them, and I understand. The system, the society that has been created around them is all about joining, about maximising your earning potential, and when somebody like myself refuses to play the game, it makes them question the game that they are spending their entire life engaging with.

So what did I think of the book?

I thought that it had ideas that somebody like myself could interact with. It is a very different book, because it’s slow, and it has real world issues in it. I didn’t like the sex stuff, but sex sells, so I understand. Hang on. A book with themes that concern the maximising of earning potential includes a weird sex angle that reads very much itself like the maximising of earning potential. Is that ironic? What did Alanis say? Oh, she was wrong, yeah, funny.

Anyway, it’s not the sex that interests me about this book, it’s the ideas, or the possibility at least of ideas being discussed at all. The essay at the close of the book was a very good idea. It created more scope for thought, for ideas, for somebody like myself to interact with.

Here’s the problem, and I’ve hinted about it during this review.

Material #1 is a book that somebody like me is bound to enjoy and give a positive rating to, but do you know how many people I’ve met in my life who are like me?

Just one, and yeah, obviously, it’s me.

The book is talking about ideas, about the real world, about how messed up it is, about how we need to stop sleep walking through life and start doing something other than making money. Comic books largely cater towards the sleeping sections of society, the workers, the careerists, and the young people that want to join the money making, anti-human system themselves.

I enjoyed the book, and I’ll keep on reading. It intrigued me, it helped me to think, but in a comic book world largely dominated by fanboys/girls who want to chill-out and not think at all, how many other people will be up for this one? I’m the one comic book reviewer who is guaranteed to like this book, but I really do worry about what the other reviews are going to say about it. *

Rating: 9/10 (A rare book, worth checking out)


* Just checked the other reviews. There’s not many. The majority of the reviews gave the book a low rating and didn’t appear to understand it. It’s not surprising, as the mindset that the book is addressing is the same mindset of the comic book reviewers themselves. 

Comic Review: C.O.W.L. #10- Union City Blues

Writers: Kyle Higgins & Alec Siegel
Art: Rod Reis
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 13th May 2015


How many people have been reading and enjoying C.O.W.L. a comic book about a superhero union, political intrigues, corrupt officials and organised crime, that is set in a mythological 1960’s setting in Chicago USA?

To me, it’s Watchmen with unions, but set in the 1960’s, not the 1980’s. I don’t understand why it’s set in the 60’s and not now, a time where we really need unions to fight back against a neo-liberal political consensus. A cosy consensus between politics and corporations with the corporations having all of the power because they own the governments, and with the workers (that’s you, and me) being screwed over and told that everything is okay by smiling corporate faces on their HD television sets.

It was the late 70’s and early 80’s when union power was largely destroyed in the UK by the first wave of neo-liberalism. Margaret Thatcher used the police to beat up striking miners and to destroy their communities. The miners were standing in the way of corporate profit, so they had to be destroyed, and destroyed they were.

Working class communities all over the UK today have never recovered from Thatcher. In 2015 these communities have been devastated by privatisation, by international markets, by corporate, state backed neo-liberalism. The people still living in these devastated communities are addicted to drugs shipped in from Afghanistan, long-term unemployed, working in MCJobs that don’t even pay a living wage, fighting (and dying) in evil foreign wars for corporate profit, or languishing in prison. Destroyed by neo-liberalism, the people are herded like sheep, controlled by the drug laws that are designed to ensure that they never again become a threat to the neo-liberal elite.

Somebody should write a comic about that, but C.O.W.L. is an American comic book, so it’s about Chicago, not Liverpool or Durham. Like I said in the opening paragraph, I don’t know who is reading it, because in my comic book shop in Swindon, Wiltshire I am the only one. Batman and Spiderman sell hundreds of copies. C.O.W.L sells one, to me.

I buy it because there is a hint of reality there, just a hint, but that’s about as good as you are going to get today. I buy it because it shows how the cops and politicians manipulate public opinion, how they stage events to justify their own existence.

Imagine a comic book where a terrorist event in the west is shown to be staged, not for the illuminati, or stonecutters (Simpson’s reference) but for the obvious reason that the staging of said event justifies budgets for anti-terrorist departments within the police, military and intelligence agencies?

C.O.W.L. gets about as close as doing that as is allowable today. It counterbalances it by having good people working in the Police, and I’m sure that the villains will be exposed in the end.

People enjoy cleverness in their movies and books, but if that cleverness exposes how the real world actually works they get uncomfortable with it, and label it a ‘conspiracy theory’ that nobody should take seriously. That shows you just how effective mainstream media propaganda still is in this world of the Internet. It’s sad, but true. People buy conspiracy, intrigue and manipulation in entertainment, but in real life they want to pretend that it doesn’t exist. That doesn’t make any sense to me, but the world is a bit mad at the moment, so it doesn’t surprise me that people want to believe in fantasy more than the harsh reality that they are actually living in.

I always wondered who was reading this book other than myself, and as I read the letters page at the end of this issue my question was answered.

The book will be wrapped up in next month’s issue #11.

I know why comic book readers in the UK weren’t reading the book. They weren’t reading it because it was complex, because it was about new characters, and because it was about fictional US superhero unions in the 1960’s. That sounds like ‘politics,’ and the last thing that comic book readers want to read about in their comic books is boring old politics.

That says a lot about my generation, a generation of men unwilling and unable to connect dots, to see how important politics and unions used to be, and still are today, if they wanted them to be. But rather than getting involved, joining unions themselves and fighting back against neo-liberalism, what instead do they prefer to do?

Here’s what they do: They buy comic books that remind them of better times, when they were children, when they didn’t have to worry about work and bills. Anything that reminds them of adult reality is no fun. They don’t want to read about that. Give them Batman, Spiderman, and the Avengers. Give them cool quips, action, characters, plot-twists and exciting stories about nothing. That’s what they want, that’s what they demand, that’s what they buy, and the corporate comic book publishers are happy to oblige.

Enjoy this week’s event book. What, your future career went to China? What, your college degree now means nothing? What, you can’t even afford to buy a house? What, you are on a conveyor belt of endless work, no retirement in sight? What, no unions anymore?

Never mind, here’s a copy of the latest Batman. It has zombies in it, just like the walking dead. It’s a mocking metaphor. Don’t try to understand it, just enjoy, it’s cool, zombies are cool, it’s cool to be the walking dead. Bang, cool man, did you see his head explode?

I’ll miss C.O.W.L. It was about politics and unions, and about questioning those that claim authority over you. I would have preferred it to have been set in 2015 so they could have dealt with what is going on in the world today, but for a book about US superhero unions in the 1960’s it was a worthwhile read. I enjoyed it, and next month’s finale will be a book that I’m very much looking forward to reading, just to see how everything is tied up and whether or not it concludes with a message about what is happening in our neo-liberal, non-unionised slave worker world of today.


Rating: 8/10 (Nicely ramps up the tension for next month’s finale, plus there’s a ‘cool’ Nosferatu like villain for all of the geeks to enjoy)