Blitz review: Negative Space #1- Letting go and falling into creativity

Art: Owen Gieni
Script: Ryan K Lindsay
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 8th July 2015



Negative Space is very much a book about, and for, writers. It’s about the creative process, the manipulations of corporate paymasters, and what happens when creativity dries up.

The best thing about the book is the artwork by Owen Gieni. The cover doesn’t do the book justice, as the interior art is stunning, washed in sadness, and dripping with sweet melancholic beauty.

The narrative is sad, depressed, but hope flickers and as you follow the day in a life of a suicidal writer you know that he’s going to be okay, that there’s going to be a twist, and that he’ll learn how to live again.

And so the book ends with that twist, not really a twist, but an expected hope spot (that’s a wrestling term) that keeps you interested in the protagonist, and invested in his story.

It’s a bit weird, but the beautiful art, refreshingly different protagonist (he’s fat and ugly, not young with a cool haircut) and overall impression that the book has a rare spark of creativity, of originality about it, has hooked me.

I’ll be back for issue #2, and I’m very much looking forward to reading it, not just because of the art, but because of the concept and the protagonist. I like them both, and I want to tag on, to see what happens next.


Rating: 8/10 (I dislike the cover, but everything else about the book works very well)

Comic review: The Tomorrows #1- What’s for dinner tonight?

Writer: Curt Pires
Artist: Jason Copland
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 8th July 2015



Feisty young girl with punk haircut as main protagonist> CHECK.

Too cool for school dialogue> CHECK.

Dystopic future that looks a bit like Blade Runner> CHECK.

Vague referances to corporations and social media> CHECK.

Villainous white guy planning to rule the world from his corporate headquarters> CHECK

Fight Club vulgarity and sex talk> CHECK

Secret cyber hacker group full of cool young kids> CHECK

‘Cool’ references to fashionable pop culture icons> CHECK

Inability to recognise that the tyranny of the ‘future’ is happening right now>CHECK

Exposition overload in issue #1> CHECK

Creepy villains with televisions for heads> CHECK

Talking animal for added ‘cool’ factor> CHECK

Futuristic motorcycle for punk girl to ride about on> CHECK

Confusing subplot about the nature of reality, complete with academic references> CHECK

Guest appearance by Alan Moore clone> CHECK

Confusing end that leaves you with a feeling of emptiness mixed with bewilderment>CHECK

That’s the book then.

What is it about?

Ah, nothing really, but it’s cool, it’s about the future and stuff, I think man, about corporations being evil and stuff.

Ah I see, so it’s just another faux-rebellious comic book with a punk female protagonist who looks like the 1992 era Tank Girl? 

Yeah, pretty much.

The kids will buy it, won’t they?

Yeah, a couple of lonely art students will drool all over it.

Don’t be cruel.

Sorry, easy targets.

What a laugh, it’s just a waste of their time though, isn’t it?

Yeah man, but don’t tell them that. It’s just a comic book. Don’t spoil it for them.

Okay man, I won’t.

What’s for tea tonight anyway?

Lasagne.

Cool man, I love me some Lasagne.



Rating: 3/10 (Overly complicated, yet maddeningly generic)

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)

Comic review: 2000AD PROG 1938- Still in love with the cult of the order follower

Writers: Various
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 8th July 2015


2000AD has gone a bit sleepy, liberal, statist, feminist and irrelevent at the moment, so why should I waste my time constructing a detailed review when all I will do is repeat what I said about it last week?

Judge Dredd, an icon of authoritarian cool.

If you want to know what I think about Judge Dredd and female protagonists punching men in the face and bossing everybody about then look at my previous reviews. I’m not going to repeat myself, so I’ll keep this week’s review of 2000AD PROG 1938 short, and to the point.

The cover (by Neil Roberts) is nice. I like the layout, the blur and unconventionality to it, it’s a good one, and that’s coming from somebody who hates Judge Dredd.

Absalom has one panel with our heroes (the Police) rushing off to capture a dangerous criminal. As their van thunders through the streets they knock somebody of his bike. This is not going to be a big part of the narrative, it’s a minor detail, but it’s the best thing about the story, as it shows a truth about the Police.

Cops don’t actually give a s*** about people, it’s just fun and games to them, a case, a puzzle, a promotion, whatever, people don’t really matter, it’s all about them and their precious careers, not the people that they pretend to serve.

Cops are not there to defend the public. They are there to protect the status quo, the corporate overlords, the political minions and the demonic banks that control them.

If politicians decided that the wearing of a hat was now a criminal offence punishable by a lengthy prison sentence, cops would happily arrest you for wearing one, and send you to a gulag to rot away forever.

Order following thugs portrayed as heroes

The truth about cops is that they are not good people, they are order followers. Order followers are never good people. All cops are bad cops because they have chosen to disregard personal moral responsibility for the selfish pursuit of a career and money.

Don’t believe television cop programmes and don’t believe comics, books and all of the other media that portrays cops as heroes, because that is not based on reality. Cops are order following, selfish, immoral cowards. They always have been, and they always will be. That’s the truth, like it or not.

That’s all that I want to say about PROG 1938 of 2000AD. All of the stories have cops/soldiers as protagonists. Order followers all, there are no heroes here. If you are still under the misapprehension that order followers are good people then pick up a copy of Mein Kampf, and carry on as before. I have better things to do with my time.

Order followers are bad people. You will not sell me on the virtue of being a Nazi. It cannot be done. Comic books that portray cops and soldiers as heroes to children are doing a disservice to humanity. They are infecting the minds of the young, instilling in them a disease that maintains the evil, immoral, world that we live in today. I will not promote disease. I will not bow down to the immoral cult of the sociopathic order follower. Humanity needs to recognise truth, and to stop promoting, and bowing down to agents of the state. Cops and soldiers are order following servants of the satanic ‘elites’ that enslave us all, and it doesn’t matter how they are portrayed in mainstream media ‘programming’ vehicles. Truth will eventually out, and humanity will not be enslaved forever.


Rating: 3/10 (The narrative in Helium has a tame correlation with the many resource wars that the corrupt western elites have engaged in since 2001)

Secret Wars #4- What is a superhero?

Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Esad Ribic
Publisher: Marvel (Disney)
Released: 1st July 2015



Go to a comic book shop, pick up a new superhero comic book, read it, and ask yourself the following question:

What is a contemporary mainstream comic book superhero?

Grant Morrison thinks that they are stand-ins for soldiers.

I agree.

They are soldiers, and what do soldiers do?

They follow orders.

Who TODAY is in charge, and who is giving the orders?

According to the mainstream media it’s the Clintons, Blairs, Obamas, Camerons and all of the other blue and red puppets.

Puppets?

Yes, puppets.

But if they are puppets, who is controlling their strings?

The neoliberal corporate/banking elites.

Who are they?

They are the people who run the privately owned banks and corporations that fund governments. They are the globalists, the western elites, the new world order.

Back to comics, back to superheroes.

A superhero is a soldier, soldiers take orders from political puppets, the new world order is a corporate entity, and mainstream comic books are a part of that corporate entity. Therefore, a superhero appearing in a mainstream comic book is a soldier working for the new world order.

Did that truth taste bad? I hope so, because truth is a bitter pill to swallow, and that is why people don’t like it, and get upset when you try to force it down their throats. I understand, but I want to talk about more than the art and panel designs in comic books. I want to talk about the world, and comic books are the platform that I use to do that.

So what does the new world order want?

They want one world government, and total control of the entire planet.

What is the role of a soldier/superhero in the new world order?

Their role is to eliminate all opposition to the new world order.

Therefore, all ‘villains’ in contemporary comic books have to represent a threat to the new world order.

The villain in Secret Wars #4 is Doctor Doom, a crazed dictator type.

It’s always a crazed dictator type, in comic books, and in the real world.

The crazed dictator will sit on a throne, scare people, act like a villain, and cause problems until he is finally defeated by the soldiers/superheroes.

In Secret Wars #4 that process is progressing towards its inevitable conclusion. Doom fights the soldiers, and he acts like a power-crazed delusional madman. He wins a battle, but in the long run he will lose the war.

That’s how contemporary corporate entity comic books work. A dictator threatens the status quo, soldiers/superheroes are sent in, cue battles and some character stuff, the dictator is defeated, and it’s back to the beginning again.

In comic books it’s The Joker, Doctor Doom, Magneto, The Red Skull and Lex Luthor.

In the real world it’s Hussein, Bin Laden, Gaddafi, Assad and Putin.

Comic books villains exist to serve the narrative, to sell comic books.

Real world villains exist to serve the narrative, to sell the new world order.

Secret Wars #4 is a comic book about superheroes/soldiers fighting against the latest dictator, the latest threat to the new world order.

It’s a comic book that people will read and enjoy. They will discuss the art, the characters, the fights and the plot. Deeper issues and socio-political assumptions that are made within the text will not be discussed.

I will be ignored, or criticised, more of the former, a little of the later, if I’m lucky. That’s okay. The new world order relies on the consent of the governed. If the people want it, then they’ll get it. That’s the world that we live in, that’s the world that we want, that’s the world that we deserve.


Rating: 7/10 (Starts better than it ends, and it’s all about the characters now)

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)

Comic book review: Grant Morrison’s 18 Days- The Mahabharata In Comic Book Form

Writer: Grant Morrison
Art: Jeevan J. Kang
Publisher: Graphic India
Released: 30th June 2015



I often come across references to the ancient Indian poem ‘The Mahabharata’ in books and television shows that can be loosely categorised in the ‘ancient alien’ bracket, but I’ve never actually read the poem for myself.

All that I know is that it sounds extraordinary. It’s about superheroes, gods, monsters, demons, flying craft, devastating weapons and the past, present and future of humanity. In short, it’s perfect fodder for a comic book.

Grant Morrison has actually read the poem, and obviously agrees that it would make a fine comic book, because he’s done just that, and here it is.

In ‘Grant Morrison’s 18 Days’ I now have the perfect entry point into learning all about the Mahabharata. I feel terribly lazy that I hadn’t done it before, but this comic book is going to force some knowledge onto me, and I couldn’t be happier.

Morrison can get a bit abstract, a bit weird, a bit trippy, but not here. He’s keeping it simple, and making sure that the reader understands exactly what is going on, who is involved, and what the consequences are. The first part of the book explains the ages of the earth (we are in the last age now, which explains a lot), and sets the stage for the major battle that is about to take place. If light wins, the cycle repeats, darkness is banished and a new age of enlightenment begins. If dark wins, the cycle will cease to turn, and darkness will be here to stay.

The book then introduces the participants on each side, and Krishna, the living God, who is on the battlefield, but has taken a vow not to fight. I’d heard of Krishna, but I knew nothing about him at all. To see him in a comic book, looking like a superhero, really brings him to life, and I can’t wait to find out more about him and to expand my woeful knowledge base on all things related to the Hindu religion.

The vast majority of comic books are fluff, a waste of time, something to read, moan about, or enjoy, and forget. I’ve read a lot of comic books like that, and what have they given me? Something to do when I was bored, that’s about it really. These days I’m looking for something with a bit more substance, and that’s why you won’t see too many detailed reviews of the latest DC and Marvel teen girl books on my blog.

I’m an indie hunter now, still in love with comic books, but looking for books that say something, books that give me a little bit more than amusement or a way to waste my time.

Grant Morrison’s 18 Days #1 puts comic book life into an ancient Indian text, and introduces mythological (or are they historical?) characters that were the original superheroes. The art is big, bold, colourful and perfect for a superhero comic book, and fits very comfortably alongside other 'superhero' genre books that you will find in your comic book shops today.

For those looking for an accessible entry point into ancient Indian mythology/history, 18 Days is a must buy comic book. For everybody else, pick it up anyway, you won’t regret it.

When you purchase the book (It only costs $1) you’ll get a traditional powers and fights superhero comic book, but with an added element. That added element is fascinating insight into what an ancient Indian text has to say about the nature of humanity, where we came from, what we are doing, and where we are going. You won’t get that kind of information in your average comic book, so don’t miss out on this one.



Rating: 9/10 (The Mahabharata in accessible comic book form)



Check out the digital version of this comic book on You Tube: