50-Word (Comic) Review: 2000AD-Prog 1954- Bad Company Brilliance

Writers and artists: Various
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 28th October



Dredd concludes Serial//Serial. Villain undetected, which is good. Don’t kill a star. Defoe is rich crooks versus poor crooks, happy enforcers enjoying their work. Bad Company old school art brilliance. Used up dogs of war refuse to hide painful memories with state mandated ‘medication.’ Now that’s something with contemporary parallels.


Rating: 8/10

Bad Company//First Casualties is the undoubted star of 2000AD at the moment. It’s a story that reminds me of the old days, the days when I first fell in love with 2000AD as a kid. The art is old school excellence, very 80’s, very cool. The characters are enjoyable, interesting, a bit wacky and a lot of fun. The story itself has a strong thematic core that resonates with contemporary concerns. It’s about traumatised veterans, and what happens to them when they are no longer of any use to the death cult state. 

The story is dealing with truths that a lot of people don’t even want to think about. The state is organised violence. It programmes young men, turning them into murderers, monsters, and spits them out when they are no longer of any use. Medals, parades and charity concerts cannot hide the truth. Bad Company//First Casualties is a story about what happens to soldiers after the war, and in a 2015 UK society full of traumatised young men returning from illegal foreign wars, it’s as contemporary, relevant and important as a ‘sci-fi’ story in a weekly comic book can get.

A definition of freedom: Negative reviews, a prison world, collectivism and the right of an individual to remain outside, alone, unhappy, but free.

Article by: Mark.A Pritchard (aka Rorshach1004/SwindonPoet)

Date: 29th October 2015



It can be tiring, frustrating, depressing and soul destroying when you read and review a book (or movie) that isn’t very good.

People don’t want to hear ‘negative’ comments about something that they like, so what you are doing is spending your time writing reviews that will be ignored. People will see it as a ‘negative’ review, and will not bother to read the entire article, and they certainly won’t comment or leave you any feedback on it. However, if you go over the top with mad praise about something, you’ll get a big audience and receive plenty of positive feedback, some probably coming from the creator/writer himself.

Here’s the deal, as I see it. In 2015 we live in a world of media choices where people choose only to consume the media that conforms to their particular world-view. Liberal types read liberal media. Conservative types read conservative media, and ‘geek’ types read media that offers them a little cocoon of unreality where they can hide within a soft feminist, identity politics obsessed, cultural Marxist, neo-liberal world of get-along-gang unreality.

So when somebody like myself comes along and starts to slag off their beloved unreality texts, they do what you might expect them to do. They ignore my words, and stay within the confines of their familiar reservations, where they don’t have to think about anything that makes them feel uncomfortable with the comic book ‘geek’ culture programming products that they are consuming.

I’m not complaining about this situation, I just want to state on the record that I’m very much aware of what is going on. I expect to be ignored, and I also expect to have the occasional pat on the head when I go overboard and heap praise on something. That’s just how it works today in 2015 where the consumer self-censors his own thought processess.

You don’t need Internet police or censorship to stop 'difficult' people like myself. Comic book fans do the work of the censors for them. Anything outside of their neo-liberal, progressive, corporate/statist consensus world-view is disregarded as the ravings of a madman, as something coming from a crazy person who is taking the fun out of comics, taking things too seriously, or just somebody who has too much time on his hands. If that doesn’t work then they can always fall back on their beloved identity politics and call me racist, or sexist, either category will do. My opinionated words challenge the established comic book order, and so of course, they must be ignored.

What I want to do here is to offer up some words of encouragement for sidelined people, like myself, that might be reading this little article.

Keep on writing, keep on doing what you are doing. I don’t have to agree with a single word that you say, but we need disagreeable, individualistic people more than any other time right now.

We need the nutters, we need the moaners and complainers, and we need the wacky and the strange. We need the anti-social outsiders to mock and insult the socio-political norms of our times.

Humanity is sleepwalking into a world of soft state collectivism, and the people are happily imprisoning themselves within a cage of their own making.

In other words, and this is me talking about myself now: I know that I am outside, and I choose to remain here, outside. I can see the cages, the bars, and I can see the people happily existing within them. I see families building the prisons, and I see well-intentioned mothers and fathers encouraging their children to reinforce the gates and bars. The people look so happy living within their own self built prisons, and if that’s where they are happiest, then who am I to demand that they free themselves?

If they want to live in jail, then they are free to live in jail.

I myself though chose to stay here, alone, outside of the prison, and although it can be a bit depressing and soul-destroying at times, there’s nowhere that I’d rather be. To quote from ‘A Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley: ‘ All right then, said the savage defiantly, ‘I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.’ And this, my collectivist friends, is the very definition of being free.

50-Word (comic) Review: Art Ops #1- Dead art illustrates book where art comes alive

Writer: Shaun Simon
Artist: Mike Allred
Publisher: Vertigo/DC
Released: 28th October 2015



Art portraits are real, the subject lives within the frame, can be stolen, protected by ‘Art-Ops.’ The Mona Lisa is a physical lady, not oil on canvas. Creative idea from Shaun Simon, but I dislike the art. Comic book about art being alive has unimpressive art, ends up defeating itself?


Rating: 5/10

I really enjoyed ‘Neverboy’ from Shaun Simon. It had a great central idea, and the art (By Tyler Jenkins) was perfect for what the book was trying to convey. It was a book about creativity, and the art was very creative, so it was the perfect marriage between narrative and art. ‘Art-Ops’ features another creative concept from writer Shaun Simon, with the idea being that art is alive within the frame, and that what is drawn can come out of the frame and interact with the physical world. The ‘Art-Ops’ (who they work for, or how they are funded, is not specified) work to protect the people living in the portraits (how does it work with things like mountains and landscape portraits?) from art thieves. Are the art thieves purely interested in money, or is something more interesting going on? I’m not sure, but I’m sure we’ll find out later as I am unsure about any of the motivations here. The main protagonists are a punk haired boy (makes a change from a punk haired girl I guess, but what is it with the punk haircuts in comic books?) and his Mum. His Mum worked for the art-ops, but goes missing, and it’s up to him to take her place, but he’s reluctant, as is to be expected. He has no Dad by the way, which is a theme that I’m really starting to notice now in all forms of mainstream cultural programming. If you’ve read anything on my blog you’ll know what I think about that, and how the state wants fathers out of the lives of children, leaving children easy pray for the father substitute that is the state. I hope that the father turns up in this book, and I hope that he’s a good guy, as that will make a nice change from the norm and will be sending out a strong message about the importance of fathers, but we’ll see. The main problem I had with this book however was that I disliked Mike Allred’s art. I found it to be borderline bad, lacking in detail, lacking in intensity, lacking in emotion, blocky, static, amateurish, basic, and just not very good at all. What more can I say? I didn't like it, at all. That’s a huge disappointment to me because I really enjoyed the art in Neverboy, and the art here (for me) is nowhere near as good. I wanted to be impressed by this book, but the art just isn’t doing it for me, and I don’t know if there’s enough here plot/character/idea wise for me to hang around for too long. Because of the good-will I still retain from my enjoyment of Neverboy I’ll give it one more issue before making up my mind about it, but sad as it is for me to type out these words, I’m feeling very much underwhelmed by this book at the moment.

Movie review: The World’s End- Empty Nostalgia for the Loser Generation

Written by: Edgar Wright & Simon Pegg.

Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman.

Release Date: July 2013

Box Office: $46.1



Simon Pegg is Hollywood diet body gaunt, he looks wealthy, his new hair must have cost him a fortune, but is Nicholas Cage bad. Nick Frost, his old buddy, is still Humpty Dumpty rotund, an everyman foil to the overachieving Pegg machine. That Office bloke is here as well. He plays the same character that he always plays, with the wide-eyed facial tics and air of bemused exasperation that has served him so well during his entire acting career.

Mocking nostalgia, whilst making money out of nostalgia.

The plot is perfunctory and involves some boring middle-aged gits and their pathetic old mate (Simon Pegg) going on a final pub-crawl around a sleepy English town. The movie sags as the boring old men sit in pub chatting about the past. Pegg is wacky, but the rest of the cast look bored and not into it at all.

Imagine a group of tired middle-aged salesmen having a chat in a pub with a ‘wacky’ 1990’s character trying to get a reaction out of them. That’s the first third of the movie. It then gets purposefully silly as some ridiculous alien robots are introduced into the narrative. They had to appear, as nothing else was happening. The movie then descends into fight scenes with aliens exploding into blue goo, lots of running around, and sight-gags involving Simon Pegg falling over fences, as he tends to do in all of his other movies. Hey, isn’t this the same plot as Shaun of the Dead?

Yeah, it’s Shaun of the Dead 2, just like the first movie, but with an added sense of overwhelming sadness and nostalgic regret. The narrative is unsure of itself, it sags, it’s overwritten, it’s dull and it lacks a strong new idea to give everything a sense of urgency and life. The attempt is to criticise nostalgia, whilst making money from nostalgia. The contradiction comes across as hypocrisy, as the movie is nothing if not painfully, apologetically self-aware. As it concludes you can feel the producers panic as they realise that their theme of an invading alien population might be misconstrued as an attack on the open borders mass immigration policy that is turning the UK into a segregated nation of warring tribal communities. It doesn’t want to do anything that might upset the neo-liberal corporate consensus of cultural genocide of indigenous European culture, so it shoehorns in a politically correct ending to appease the almighty god of cultural diversity. Nice one lads. I think you got away with it.

Here comes the forward rolls and fights in a pub.

It’s all very sad, to see the cool of the past, regurgitated with diminishing returns. What you have in this movie is a nostalgic unit shifter aimed at a generation that gave us Tony Blair, the Iraq war, Police state surveillance, lies and corruption. It’s a generation that paved the way for what we have now. A crumbling western civilisation, being looted by a political class of neo-liberal lunatics with an enslaved population losing itself in I-Phones, fantasy, gambling, sports, celebrities, nostalgia and anything that helps to distract their minds from the painful reality that surrounds their everyday waking lives.

I left ‘The World’s End’ with my mind very much on waking concerns. There was no distraction from painful reality here. It left me with a familiar feeling of sad emptiness and regret that you always get from indulging in corporate sponsored nostalgia. What was new and cool has become old and lame, and try as you might, you cannot reinvent what is now gone. The World’s End is an old man sitting in a pub, alone, thinking about the good old days, unable to recreate them. He’s alive, but lost in a dead past. He’s out of time, and his cool old friends are married/buried (as Kurt said) in the suburbs.

The old man looks pathetic, but then reality kicks in and you realise that Simon Pegg is a Hollywood career actor. He appears in Star Trek. He’s a star. There’s no austerity for him. He escaped the UK. He did very well for himself. He might be playing the sad old man in the pub, but that sad old man, drinking alone, stuck in the past, wrapped up in useless nostalgia, he’s not Simon Pegg. That pathetic old man is the 1990’s generation, the defeated, retreated viewers of this movie.

I loved these guys in 'Spaced.'

We cannot recapture a lost feeling. We cannot live off of the fumes of the past. It’s dead, gone, we need to move on, and we need to deal with the reality that is now. If we stay in the nostalgic past we are the suckers, because we are the people paying for the nostalgic movie that does not resonate with concerns of today. The actors are doing very well, don’t worry about them. They’ll go home to big houses and careers, we’ll go home to debt caged routines and dreams of the days when our world still had possibilities.

Simon Pegg is a winner, just like he always was. These days he’s selling nostalgia to losers, a winner, milking the failures that make up his audience of ageing fanboys, a well he can drain before going back to making irrelevant movies in Hollywood with unfunny American actors. Why then does he still go through the old UK routine, with diminishing returns, when he can stay in Hollywood making nonsense movies for the big US market? Who knows? Perhaps he just needs to sure up his UK fanbase every now and then? I think that’s probably it.

I don’t want to be reminded of a useless past. Pegg portrays a loser in these movies, but he’s no loser. The audience fanboys stuck in useless 90’s nostalgia are the losers, he panders to them, he pretends to be them, and why not? He’s a winner, and winners always portray themselves as losers in order to gain favour with their audience. I don’t want to be a loser. I don’t want to be stuck in the past. The 1990’s created what we have now. I live now, not then, I want to talk about now. I want to move on.  I have no desire to live in the useless, dirty old past. I want to live today. I want to talk about today. I want to do something about today. Today is all we have. The past is a graveyard, an overgrown nowhere land of sad-eyed nostalgic losers. I don’t want to go there. I have to move on.


Rating: 4/10 (The movie is nostalgia aimed at UK males who grew up in the 1990’s. I grew up during that time period, and loved ‘Spaced’ so I’m in the target demographic, but all it did for me was to leave me feeling empty and depressed)

50-Word (Comic) Review: We Are Robin #5: Indoctrinating Children into Government Mandated ‘Diversity’

Writer: Lee Bermejo
Artist: Jorge Corona
Publisher: DC
Released: 28th October 2015


Introduce fatherless young diversity tropes, a cackling villain, a philanthropic Bat-friend. Daddy-state needs children, reinforces violent coercion with paper law justification, always needing young recruits. Can’t portray ‘controversial’ truth in DC, reduced to politically correct diversity programming. Push female emancipation. It’s the 1950's. Don’t mention statism. I see patterns here.


Rating: 3/10 


Did that ‘review’ make any sense? Probably not, so I’ll explain. ‘We are Robin #5’ is a book about young superhero types. As is to be expected in mainstream comic books of 2015, these young superheroes are very diverse, and largely female. The story follows them as they beat up a sexist male, and argue about a mystery bloke who wants to fund their crime-fighting comic book escapades. The book concludes with a cackling villain trying to recruit them into his evil gang of murderous miscreants. Will they join him, or will they accept an offer of help from the mysteriously minted (Bat) bloke? Why should we care about them, and why should we care about their choice of future employer/benefactor? I don’t know. I couldn’t get anything out of these characters. I guess if you’ve read the previous four issues (I haven’t) then you’ll give a damn? This is my first look at the title, and what I’m reading here is a book that’s pushing the usual youth diversity message that you get in pretty much all mainstream/corporate/statist programming vehicles. The kids are shown as vulnerable, as needing a ‘father’ as they are out on the streets alone, so why isn’t the real life father substitute (the state) given a role within the narrative? The state doesn’t exist in this book. Why is that? I find that to be very weird. Is this a Batman book thing? Did the state collapse at the end of the Endgame arc? Does that mean that there is no longer any collectivist in a suit who is pretending to represent the people of Gotham? Does that mean that the people are finally free from the collectivised violence of top down state control? Does that mean that we don’t have to sigh at the television as creepy would-be controllers go through their tired routines of offering bribes to their increasingly disenfranchised fool voters? If so, if the world of Batman is now an ‘anarchist’ world, then the absence of the state within this narrative would make sense. Is that’s what’s happening here, or is it just a case of a comic book writer not thinking about the state at all, and how it recruits traumatised children into their control system of human enslavement? If you write a comic book about kids looking for a father substitute, and don’t include the NUMBER ONE father substitute in the entire world (the state) you are either not paying attention to reality, or you are deliberately ignoring uncomfortable truths about the nature of the world as it is today. I’ll give writer Lee Bermejo the benefit of the doubt and assume that he hasn’t really thought about the violently coercive nature of the modern state and just wants to write a PC comic book about ‘diverse’ characters. If that’s what you are after, then buy the book, but for anybody interested in reality, you’re not going to get a lot out of this one. 


* If the world portrayed within this book is in a state of anarchy (freedom from state control) please let me know, and I’ll happily take back everything that I’ve just written. 

50-Word-Review: The Uncanny Inhumans #1- Starring Christine Legarde as Medusa

Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Steve McNiven
Publisher: Marvel/Disney
Released: 21st October 2015


Medusa as Christine Lagarde, Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel, totalitarians masquerading as liberators, protectors. Humanity enslaved to collectivised left, on the Daily Show/ CNN. Male emasculation as female liberation, cheat on your husband, in his face, no shame, immorality is tolerance, kill tradition, diversity a mantra, collectivisation, feminist New World Order.



Rating: 2/10


There’s two stories going on in ‘The Uncanny Inhumans #1# but they didn’t particularly grip me. The first one involves Black Bolt trying to get his son back from cartoon evil ‘Kang the Conqueror.’ The second story involves his wife (Queen Medusa) acting like a globalist politician, ‘Your world is our world. We will always fight to keep it safe.’ Medusa is the empowered boss of this book, working with what looks a UN approved superhero diversity team, appearing on collectivist, progressive media platforms (The Daily Show), and concluding her day by kissing her new boyfriend in front of her ex-husband’s (are they even divorced yet?) face. What does she think about her missing son? It is her son, as well as Black Bolt’s, right? We don’t know, as she never mentions it, she’s far too busy with her political agenda, and new boyfriend to care about a missing boy, even if he is her own son. Oh, by the way, she’s a heroine in this book, not a villain. Yep, what we have here is the typical ‘progressive’ feminist protagonist, more concerned with her career and personal pleasure than the welfare of her own family. She’s not a woman, she’s a representation of the very worst kind of man, but that’s third-wave feminism for you, and that’s exactly what you are getting in this comic book. Female empowerment is always pushed as a good thing as it emasculates men, denies the biological reality of femininity, and pushes females into positions of authority within the new state collectivist system of human enslavement. Females are encouraged to join this system where they can boss around/protect the poor innocent victim/voters that grovel at their feet in willing supplication. Females know what is best, because they are female, and they get to tell us all what to think, feel and do. If you disagree with them that means you are you are a misogynist bigot and are a danger to the wonderful new world order that is currently being ushered in by the wonderful progressive liberal writers working for globalist programmers Marvel/Disney comics. If you disagree with any of this progressive agenda then you are a barrier to ‘progress,’ to be ostracised from society and thrown in jail if you continue to speak up on any of these issues and invade the ‘safe space’ non-reality of all that push it. Hey guys, blokes, men, and any traditionally minded female who values family, respect, honour and real femininity over far-left communist inspired ideology. Why are you reading these comics? You do realise that they are attacking YOU, don’t you? I read them to expose this anti-human ideology, and to talk about it in these ‘reviews,’ because nobody else is doing it, and comic books are being given a free reign to push this collectivist crap. I have to write about it, because I disagree with what they are pushing, and I want to call them out on it. That’s my excuse for (occasionally) buying these horrible tools of Marxist/Globalist/FemiNazi propaganda. What is yours? 




* Bonus story is statist bull**** with an agent of the state rescuing a poor innocent helpless civilian/victim from evil white men with beards. Same old s***.

50 Word (Comic) Review: Godzilla in Hell #4- Subtle Matrix Busting Brilliance

Writer: Brandon Seifert
Artist: Ibrahim Moustafa
Creative Consultant: Chris Mowry
Publisher: IDW
Released: 21st October 2015


It’s subtle, you can’t see it, you are wrapped within the life lie, fighting battles, throwing punches, avoiding kicks, but truth is outside the war-zone of rat-race concerns, realise that death is an illusion, blast through the hidden wall, walk into the white, for there, alone, you will find reality.



Rating: 9/10

There’s a heck of an allegory going on in this comic book, and it’s so subtle that it can be easily missed. Godzilla is fighting various monsters, but after a while he realises that something is afoot. He cannot die, so he realises that the fight isn’t real. With this knowledge he decides to focus his energy on escaping from the unreality that has caged him. He comes across a wall, uses guile, intellect and brute strength to break through it, sees the white light of endless possibility, and walks straight into it. That’s the end of the book, and to find out more about that white light we’ll have to wait for Godzilla in Hell #5. Here’s my take on the allegory: Godzilla is in the world that we all inhabit. He spends his time fighting for dominance, as we all do. However, Godzilla realises that death is an illusion, as it is in our own holographic world. With this knowledge of truth, he breaks free from the Matrix that has caged him in flight or fight/rat-race/survival of the fittest non-reality, and into truth, into the real world beyond the Matrix. Godzilla is Neo, breaking through the Matrix, but is he going to wake up in a tank of Goo like the Matrix movie? Will he find himself on a movie set like the Truman show? Or perhaps he’ll just walk out onto a blank page and argue with the writer, like that old Daffy Duck/Bugs Bunny cartoon? Whatever it is, I can’t wait to find out what is going to happen next. This book has been great. It’s the subtlety that does it, that and an overarching concept that has tied everything together to create what is an absolutely fascinatingly individualistic, yet collaborative whole.

50 Word (Comic) Review: The Astonishing Ant-Man #1- Ants, the Ultimate Collectivists

Writer: Nick Spencer
Artist: Ramon Rosanas
Publisher: Marvel/Disney
Released: 21st October 2015



A tonne of exposition, dialogue from Ant-Man, sounds child-like, nothing adult about his words. Is this book for pre-teens? Art lacks detail, appears 2D, static, not impressed. Villains are businessmen, tech industry, inventors, innovators, and ‘libertarian.’ Oh dear, another book for the collectivist youth brigade then. I’ll pass. Goodbye Pants-Man.


Rating: 1/10

It took me a couple of pages to realise that this comic book isn’t really for adults. There’s something very simplistic, and childlike about the dialogue, almost like it has been designed for children under the age of thirteen. But would I give it to a kid? No, I wouldn’t. Here’s why. The main protagonist is a loser father, a man portrayed as loving, but inept, and the main villains are businessmen, the kind of people who actually create, innovate and make the world a better place. They are the villains because they are selfish, because they want to make money with the things that they have created, and thus you are getting the message that business innovation is villainous, and that you need to join the collective and stop being so darn selfish. It’s the same idea that is explored in ‘Atlas Shrugged’ by Ayn Rand, the big difference being that in ‘The Astonishing Ant Man #1’ businessmen are the villains, whilst in Atlas Shrugged they are the heroes. Why are mainstream comic books pushing collectivism onto the developing minds of young children? Why are they indoctrinating them into the cult of collectivism, programming them with the idea that innovation, business and money making itself is a bad thing? Do you know what particular group despises making money and inventing new things? In one word- Communists. Why would a writer be pushing Communist ideology in a 2015 comic book? He either believes in it, or he doesn’t even know that he’s doing it. It’s one of the two, and I just hope that it’s the former because at least then he’d still be thinking with his own mind. I would strongly advise against any parent buying this poisonous comic book for their young children. This is horrible, but am I surprised that Marvel/Disney is pushing this? No, not really. They don’t want any competition, they want to maintain the status quo that serves them so well, and that’s exactly what is being pushed within the pages of this comic book. Welcome to the era of corporate/state/collectivism. You can call it ‘globalism’ or ‘the New World Order,’ if you like.

50 Word (Comic) Review: 2000AD-PROG 1953- I Want to Break Free

Writers and Artists: Various
Publisher: Rebellion
Release Date: 21st October 2015



Dredd story gets it. Chinny mocks uniformed order following authoritarianism. Defoe is class war, reanimation of dead ideology, collectivist Corbyn awaits guest appearance. Brass Sun hits religious collectivism. Dexter is mainstream television, cool people violence, yuck, don’t desensitise me Bro. Bad Company rejects drugged sheeple culture, awakening time. I approve.


Rating: 8/10

Judge Dredd// Serial Serial is fast becoming the best Dredd story that I’ve read in a long, long time. Writer John Wagner really gets the absurdity that is Judge Dredd and he’s putting a lot of humour into this daft story about a serial killer and his cliché taunting letters to the cops. It’s a great send up not just of Dredd, but the entire ‘serial killer’ genre itself. I missed this at first, but I’m well on-board now. Defoe//The London Hanged is a slow builder, and there’s real meat in the rich versus poor story-line, as it ties into what is happening in the real world UK of 2015 with a largely unrepresented and disaffected tax netted population being ripped off by a bunch of Eton educated toffs, and with the only alternative being a Labour party that is going back to their dated Marxist ideology of the 1970’s. Brass Sun//Motorhead is getting to that part of the story where individuals rise up against the collectivist controllers. If only we would do that in the real world. Sinister Dexter// The Taking of the Michael is graphic blood and violence with the gross-out realism that you get on ‘cool’ mainstream US television programming. I don’t like it. I don’t like US television, and I don’t like to read it in my comics either. There is nothing ‘cool’ about shooting somebody in the head. Bad Company// First Casualties is old school 2000AD. It has top retro art, a wry sense of humour and the plot itself is a boys own adventure tale about a group of buddies getting off their drugs, clearing their heads and starting to fight back against the collectivist, lying control system that has used and abused them. In other words, it’s a story about retired soldiers realising that they have been used like dogs, and have been put into a drugged up retirement home as they are too damaged to be of any more use to the sociopathic state. I love it, and I love 2000AD this week. I disliked only one out of five of the stories, and that’s a very good strike rate, or whatever that American term is. 

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.

Dreams of a Life (2011)- Movie Review in Prose: Who were the presents for?

Directed by: Carol Morley
Written by: Carol Morley
Starring:         Zawe Ashton
Distributor:     Dogwoof Pictures
Released:       16th December 2011 (UK)
Length:           95 minutes
Language: English
Box office: £187,513


'Dreams of a Life is a 2011 drama-documentary film, released by Dogwoof Pictures, directed by Carol Morley and starring Zawe Ashton.'

'It tells the story of Joyce Carol Vincent, whose body was found in January 2006 decomposing in her bedsit in Wood Green, North London, after she apparently died unnoticed in December 2003, surrounded by unopened Christmas presents with her TV still switched on.'

'The film interviews various friends, acquaintances and former partners to try to tell the story of Joyce, who is played in reconstructions by Ashton.' (Info from Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams_of_a_Life


REVIEW:

A sad tale, looking for reasons behind the lonely death of a pretty girl, it was three years before anybody noticed, and I watch, judging everybody, forgetting about the editing decisions, the manipulation that is documentary, the lady never attached, the jobs, relationships, began, but never progressing.

I can relate.

She died alone, surrounded by Christmas presents: Who were the presents for? Her family, perhaps? Four sisters, and her father, do not appear in the documentary. Just work-friends that laugh at her being a cleaning lady before she died, poverty stripping her dignity, they are middle-class, and laugh at the image of her scrubbing floors, ha ha, work ‘mates’ do not care, a truth, it disturbs.

Two boyfriends interviewed. One with career/status rejected her. Other boyfriend is the ordinary man, not exciting, she rejected him, he still cries, the first boyfriend doesn't particular care, he's moved on and his life is fine.

Her isolation part choice, part failure.

Documentary pushes the idea of bad boyfriend abuse, it doesn’t stick, fails to convince. This is about personal choices, and a failure to connect, to plan for the future.

I do not see a victim here, just great sadness, a sadness at the heart of the towns, cities, routines and business that makes up our lives. Nothing extraordinary, it's the mundanity of life where real horror exists. A wave, a smile, fading into head down, scurry, a life off the rails, falling apart, sitting on a park bench, a face so pretty, now forgotten.

Documentary ends with a sad zoom of her face in the crowd, at a Nelson Mandella speech, it works well as an explosive documentary technique, she appears disinterested, apathetic, unmoved. An interesting lady, not into race politics or hero-worship. I probably would have liked her, but the lingering memory of the piece, a question remains: Who were the presents for?


Rating: 7/10 (The lack of input from surviving family members makes it all a bit speculative and contrived, but 'Dreams of a Life' is emotionally engaging, and worth watching as a social commentary piece about urban isolation and a failure to connect)

50 Word Review- Civil War #5: A study in divide and conquer manipulation, individualism and collectivism

Writer: Charles Soule
Art: Leinil Francis Yu
Publisher: Marvel
Released: 14th October 2015


End of Civil War arc resonates with reality. Both sides manipulated into war. Narrative conclusion highlights real world male/female divide. Feminine/left gives up liberty for illusion of security. This is why governments target females, demonising men/family/tradition. Right/male choose individuality versus collectivism. Peter Parker chooses anarchy/morality/individualism, makes me smile, worthwhile arc.


Rating: 9/10


This arc was occasionally confusing, and a lot of things didn’t make sense to me, but the conclusion offers something that I can get my teeth into. Read it as you like, but what I see here is an admission that a lot of manipulation is going on in the real world, and that when the puppet masters are revealed, and destroyed, there will be a choice to make. That choice will be individualism versus collectivism. The totalitarian, feminine left, versus the individualistic, masculine right. This is not a gender war. It’s an ideological war. Comic book readers are predominantly male, and predominantly left wing and feminine in their world-views. They are statist/collectivists, liberals, progressives, and slaves to the state, the idea that you have to give up personal liberty in order to have personal freedom. It’s a contradiction, as the more liberty you give up, the less freedom you have. The mainstream political establishment is liberal/progressive today. Comic books are also mainstream liberal/progressive in their world-views, so it’s nice to see the other side in a comic book for a change. This Civil War arc by Charles Soule, gives fair airing to that other side, and for that reason alone it’s a very valuable and worthwhile comic book to read and to get in tpb as soon as it’s available.


*The image at the head of this review is the Lo-Karr, Bringer of Doom variant cover by John Cassaday.

50 Word Review- The Goon in Theatre Bizarre: Halloween break from despair

By: Eric Powell & John Dunivant
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 14th October 2015


Ephemeral, inconsequential, gorgeously illustrated and coloured, Halloween fun, made to make you smile, dialogue is jokes, butts, one-liners, asides, quips, spooky clown, ghost theatre, fog, olde no time, fun with the boys, no depths reached, read, enjoy art and jokes, Goon so depressed by recent events, takes Halloween holiday here.


Rating: 7/10

The Goon has been having a hard time recently, suicide inducing hard. He's been down in the dumps, betrayed, lost and in fight/drink/fight despair mode. Is there any point in living (hard as it is) when there is no love in your life, and no possibility of finding it in the future? Probably not, and when there is no hope, it's all over. Goon was in desperate need of a break from despair. He gets it here in this Halloween special where he takes a trip to a spooky theatre. The story relies heavily on beautifully painted artwork and silly jokes based on female posteriors. I didn't like the ending, it fell flat, but the book looked great, and most of the jokes hit. It's a decent Halloween book, not scary, not really doing much, but as a break from the trauma and despair of recent Goon stories, it's a welcome break and a silly, inconsequential, throwaway bit of fun.

50 Word Review: The Covenant #4- Swords and Sorcery, Bible Style

Writer: Rob Liefeld
Art: Matt Horak
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 14th October 2015



Philistines sacrifice virgins to beasts, an offering to snake god Dagon, the power of the arc, of Jehovah is unleashed, a plague strikes the Philistines, an earthquake causes chaos, true God Jehovah favours the Israelites, is this truth, or Israelite propaganda? We’ll never know, history is an agreed upon lie.



Rating: 8/10

There are lots of beasts, monsters and brutal death scenes in this Bible story, so much so that it reads like a very contemporary swords and sorcery text. There’s even a role for warrior women as well, the kind of role that you get in modern feminist texts like Gail Simone’s Red Sonja, with women fighting as warriors and going toe to toe against the men. It’s an exciting book, but for the first time it’s starting to read like propaganda that a religious group would put out after a victorious battle against their enemies, where they portray the real ‘God’ as being on there side, working with them, and helping them to destroy their enemies. It’s fascinating stuff, and well worth picking up, not just for the big battles, beasts and warrior heroes/heroines, but because it’s a Bible story, it’s teaching you something about world history, something of real importance (even if it is the propaganda of a victorious people), and that’s a lot more than can be said for most comic books.

2000AD-PROG 1952- Fifty-Word Review: Bad Company? You’re Bad Company.

Writers and Artists: Various
Publisher: Rebellion
Release Date: 14th October 2015



Dredd hunts serial killer, readers yawn, joke saves the day. Defoe collectivised zombie poor kill rich. Is Corbyn there? Religious villain in ‘Brass Sun’ mentions “Clockwork Jihad.” Getting somewhere. Sinister Dexter is sci-fi Miami Vice, with violence of US television. Sick. Bad Company conjures Ghost of 2000AD past. Nostalgic smile.


Rating: 9/10

Dredd//Serial Serial is pretty stupid, but I’m starting to enjoy it now. The best thing about it is the joke at the end. It turned my frown, upside down. Dredd always was ridiculous, and this story is in touch with that sense of the absurd that rescues Dredd from statist hell and turns it into an absurdist comedy that looks at the ridiculousness that is totalitarian uniformed authority figures. Defoe//London Hanged has old school horror quality art, and the story about a risen underclass of zombie villains returning to fight against the rich, well, that just reminds me of what’s happening right now in the UK labour party. Labour (post Bliar, post Iraq) is unable (due to ineptness and neoliberal consensus) to sell itself to the UK public, so it’s going back to the zombie dead of it’s failed ideological past. Electoral failure is guaranteed, but perhaps that’s the whole point? Miliband no 2 is lurking. Brass Sun is interesting, and the mention of ‘Jihad’ in a religious/bad guy sense, is very brave of writer Ian Edginton. Nice one mate. Sinister Dexter is pretty much a US television show, but in comic book form. It’s all about cool, and brutal death scenes. I’m not a fan, but I’m not the audience for this one as I find contemporary US television to be pretty much unwatchable. Bad Company reads like something that I’d read as a kid back in the mid 1980’s. It’s funny, not in modern way, but in an old fashioned way. That’s rare, very rare these days. I’m a big fan. Funny old stuff makes me smile.

P.S

Check out the very cool ‘Bad Company’ merch available here: 

http://www.plastichead.com/catalogue.asp

Action Comics #45- Fifty Word Review- Break out the Purple Hair Dye, it’s SJW Time

Writer: Greg Pak & Aaron Kuder
Art: Scott Kolins
Publisher: DC
Released: 7th October 2015


Awesome retro cover necessitated purchase. Interior art washed out, lacks bright colouring. Narrative has too many PC social justice ‘progressive’ clichés. White man is bad, a sexist. All female characters are saints, as are people of colour. Computer geek friend for Superman. Villains called ‘supremacists, they are white men, obviously.


Rating: 4/10

It’s not terrible. The Monster month variant cover by Dave Johnson is great, and the narrative idea of a Superman on the run from various groups working within the violently coercive machine that is governmental authority, has potential. Don’t expect anything truly rebellious though. Superman is all about social justice these days, and the book quickly becomes a case study in how mainstream comic book writers have to bow, prostrate and give offerings to the weird cult of progressive, political correctness. Do they see it? Probably not, and that’s what makes it so damn creepy. They obsess over it, cradle it, worship it, live for it, and pretend that it’s not even there. Weird man, but that’s progressives for you.

Secret Wars #6 of 8: Fatherhood versus State Collectivism

Art: Essad Ribic
Story: Jonathan Hickman
Publisher: Marvel (Disney)
Released: 7th October 2015

This article is not a review. It’s intention is to discuss the role of fatherhood, using Secret Wars #6 to illustrate some of the broader points about the importance of fathers within the family unit and as a vital component in today’s fight against the collectivisation agenda pushed by the modern state apparatus.

In Secret Wars #6 a young girl (Valeria) is undergoing the process of realisation that her stepfather is a liar. His name is Doctor Doom. He is a dictator, a man pretending to be God. He represents the western democratic bogeyman of 2015, the anti-democratic dictator. This evil man must be disposed by western military intervention. He represents the past. He is an obstacle to change.

Valeria Richards appears to be about twelve years old, and is portrayed as independent, intellectual, very smart, very questioning, and very self-aware. She is like no twelve-year-old girl that I have ever met. Simply put, she is exceptional, a genius.

This positioning of the exceptional young female who questioning male authority figures is a common theme in contemporary comic books. The old structure of western society is portrayed as being organised around male power, normally tied to religion. It is portrayed as corrupt, violent and an obstacle to human progress. It needs to be replaced by young females. The message is clear. Old men need to step down. Religion is a lie. There is no God. The message is feminist and atheist.

The argument is that men, and the religions that they have created, have made the world the terrible place that it is today. Men and religion are oppressive symbols of the past. Women and atheism are the future. What we need then is a brave new (atheist) world controlled by exceptional young women. This is the idea, and it comes from Rockefeller funded university classes that push Marxist, feminist identity politic cultural programming onto the middle-classes, specifically girls, but men get it as well.

This is how it works: Middle class children are taught that white males are to blame for all of the evils of the world. The real reasons (blind obedience to the violently coercive power of the centralised state) is not taught. They are taught that the solution is to build up girls as the replacement, as the future leaders, that girls (because they are not boys) will make the world a better place.

Boys and girls go through the same cultural programming, girls are empowered by it, and as boys want to please girls, they go along with it as well. It doesn’t matter if the underlying assumptions are true, or not. What matters is that boys want to please girls, so they are happy to accept it as truth, even if it’s not, even if all the evidence around them contradicts what they have been programmed to believe. What young man would want to be labelled as a misogynist? None, and so they go along with the cultural programming.

Will the future then be a utopian society ran by female geniuses? No, it will not. The future is NOW, as this cultural programming has been pushed by universities for over fifty years, and has been a constant in progressive mainstream media texts for the past decade, at least.

So why isn’t the world a wonderful place today? What went wrong?

Instead of producing a western world of female geniuses changing the world for the better, what has been produced is a broken society where family break-up is the norm. The family unit has been targeted, and destroyed, and females now compete with men in order to serve state control systems that collectivise the individual and make the world a worse place for all of us all, men, women and children alike.

Men have been continuously told that they are bad, just because they are men, and women have never been more depressed, lonelier and isolated.

The progressive world of feminist ideology leads to frustration, depression and dependency upon the state. The genius girl as portrayed in Secret Wars #6 is all grown up now, and she is a retired government worker. She is a spinster, surrounded by cats, with no family of her own, drinking, taking prescription medicine for anxiety and depression, and wondering why her life turned out the way that it did. And how does she answer this question? She blames men, and thus, the cycle is complete.

In 2015 progressivism as pushed by cultural Marxism has created a society that blames men, depresses women, destroys families and empowers the state.

That is the inevitable end result of progressivism. When you attack tradition, attack masculinity itself and put young girls on undeserved pedestals you get a breakdown of the family, and a subsequent breakdown of society itself. Of course you do, what else could possibly happen? That is the disease of contemporary liberal ‘progressive’ ideology fused with third wave feminism. It is an ideology of destruction, of collapsing all that has come before it, in order to bring in a utopia that has never existed, and cannot exist as it goes against human nature itself.

In a progressive society nobody is empowered, women are miserable, families collapse, and the world that is created is a collectivist, soviet Russia style Hell hole. All that is remains is ideology wedded to the state. This is Hell. This is the world that we live in. This is the world that we are continuing to build with disenfranchised men, bitter, disappointed women and unhappy, fatherless children.

Secret Wars has a chance to tackle the ideology of collectivism wedded to the state. You have to remember that Doctor Doom is not the real father of Valeria. He is a stepfather, and thus could be portrayed as a state stand-in, an artificial substitute for the real father, the real head of the family unit. Valeria’s real father (Reed Richards) is plotting against the state as represented by Doom, so this story could put out a strong message about the role of the father in reuniting the family unit against the tyranny of the state.

If Doom represents the tyranny of the Collectivist State, a tyranny that takes the role of absent men/fathers within the family unit, then the victory of Reed Richards will be saying that men need to return to the family in order to resist the power of the collectivised state.

There are two issues left in this Secret Wars arc, and it’s very likely that this will happen, so even though I get fed up with this continuous pushing of the girl genius as the liberator of humanity, the likelihood is that this book will have a very positive conclusion. Will it happen, will the role of the father as a barrier against state collectivism be re-established, just as it needs to be in the real world? I hope so, and I’ll keep on reading in order to find out.

The Goon- Once Upon A Hard Time # 4- How to Make a Comic Book Reviewer Eat Humble Pie

Writer & Artist: Eric Powell
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 7th October 2015



Nice one Mr. Eric Powell. You got me. I read this conclusion to your excellent Goon-Occasion of Revenge/Once Upon a Hard Time arc, thought it didn’t make sense, then hurried into writing a scathing review where I described the book as ‘betraying the readers.’

Luckily for me I decided to check before I posted that review, just to clarify a few points, and guess what happened? I discovered that I am in fact a complete idiot, that my review was nonsense, that you didn’t betray your readers, and that this final issue does actually make lots of sense after all.

I made a huge assumption. I was conned. I thought that something happened when it didn't actually happen, and when the ending that I was expecting to take place failed to materialise, I instantly assumed that the writer was in the wrong, not the reader, that reader being me.

That’s a big lesson in humility for me. Just because an ending doesn’t pan out in the manner that I expect, that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad ending. When reading single issues I need to go back, check, and re-check, and only then should I post one of my daft ‘reviews.’

This book is going to read great in trades, so if you haven’t been following it, wait, and get that trade, it’s going to be awesome. The story is gripping and has emotional resonance, the art is superb, and the characters are a world removed from the two-dimensional quips and puns superheroes that you get in a lot of comic books today. Plus, the twist at the end of the book, the surprise that blindsided me, is very clever, and yes, obviously, a lot cleverer than arrogant old me.

Thank you Mr. Powell. Thanks for a top twist at the end of a thoroughly engaging and ultimately rewarding comic book arc. I promise not to make silly assumptions ever again. I promise to be a better reader. I promise to be better reviewer, and I promise to take more care and attention and not be so instantly dismissive in the future. My scathing review is binned, and I feel very embarrassed about it now, and extremely relieved that yes, I might have been daft enough to write it, but at least I didn’t post it and make myself look like a complete moron.


Rating: 10/10 (Far cleverer than me, this is a superb conclusion to a fantastic arc)

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.)

Doctor Strange #1- 50 Word Review: Where did the grey bits go?

Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Kevin Nowlan
Publisher: Marvel (Disney)
Release Date: 7th October 2015


Strange looks too young. Personality is Constantine/Tony Stark, playboy, generic, amalgamation of rebellious types. Narrative involves interdimensional beasties. Set in generic city. No connection to 2015 realities/issues/concerns. Quips, self-aware, knowing jokes. Cool is the game, style over substance, nothing to say, not trying to, up it’s own a*** basically, mate.


Rating: 5/10 

(Average Marvel comic book. Reminded me of the dull Age of Ultron movie with all it’s quips and cool moments. This is big budget nothingness where style is all, and substance is zero. If you have nothing to say, make sure that you say it very, very well. That’s the game here. The book features a young woman as a story-line catalyst, as you might expect, so Jason gets a special PC/Corporate/SJW Brownie point for that one. The book has nice art, and a clever opening, but it has nothing to say other than look at my cool. It’s a safe and uninteresting book, and I have zero interest in issue #2. Can you see how I’m getting around the fifty-word limit here? Sorry. I can’t help myself.) 

Comic review: Survivor’s Club #1- The new new is the old new

Writer: Lauren Beukes & Dale Halvorsen
Artist: Ryan Kelly
Publisher: Vertigo/DC
Released: 7th October 2015



The blurb on the front cover of this book (from Joe Hill, son of Stephen King) describes the book as, ‘a throwback to books like THE SANDMAN and HELLBLAZER.’

With that blurb you have a declaration of intent. The producers of the book are telling you that they intend to go back to the past, and use nostalgia to create the new ‘new.’ I wrote about that yesterday when I compared contemporary comic book writers to Jeremy Corbyn and the ‘new’ ‘new’ Labour party, which is actually the old Labour party from the 70’s/80’s.

What is it with writers working for mainstream entertainment corporations that stops them from getting with the NOW and doing something genuinely NEW rather than relying on dusty old ideas and ideologies of the past?

I’ll answer that question in a sentence:

Neoliberal consensus, collectivist, authoritarian political correctness, pushed by your local (state funded) university in gender studies/Marxism classes.

It’s everywhere now, you can’t escape it, and this new/new/old comic book is all on board and willing to do its bit for the progressive collectivist cause.

The narrative of Survivor’s Club #1 is focused on the ubiquitous champion of progressive ideology, the young, sexually appealing (but not overly sexualised) woman of colour. She is a leader, an engineer, a computer gamer (expert level, obviously ), and a survivor of the evil white racist regime that was apartheid South Africa.

Do you have your PC tick box ready? Here we go, tick off those politically correct brownie points.

- Young female.
- Not white.
- Victim of white racism.
- Engineer.
- Leader.
- Computer game player, and an expert one at that.

I want to make this very clear. I’m not complaining about any of this. All I am doing is pointing out the neoliberal corporate consensus agenda, an agenda that is being pushed right now in comic books.

There is a severe lack of diversity happening right now in the comic book genre. It’s dominated by progressivism, feminism and Marxist identity politics. That’s not my opinion, it’s just the way that it is. Pick up any contemporary comic book, have a look, and tell me that it’s not the case.

The new heroes (young females) are starting to look very similar, and the new villains (racist, right wing white males) are just as similar as well. If I didn’t know any better I’d suspect that there’s some sort of ideological consensus in contemporary comic books that people should be talking about, but perhaps I’m just another evil white man and I don’t know what I’m talking about?

I can feel the anger building up now. Am I really complaining that young women of colour are being portrayed as heroic protagonists in comic books? No, I'm not. What I'm complaining about is a lack of diversity. There are too many strong independent young women in comic books now. Book after book and the heroines all look and act the same. That's boring, really, really boring, and I'm starting to get really fed up with this lazy, self-congratulatory progressive/feminist agenda being shoved down my throat in all of my comic books.

I began this ‘review’ with a quote that described this book as a ‘throwback.’ Sorry, but that’s not true. This comic book might have a narrative based on 1980’s computer games, but it’s a book very much set in the identity politics obsessed mainstream comic book world of today. I read this book and it doesn’t remind me of Sandman or Hellblazer, it reminds me of just about every other comic book that I’m reading at the moment.

So what is it about? Did I mention that yet? Probably not, okay then, here we go. It’s about a computer game turning people into violent murderers, or something. Is that new? Does that sound ‘new’ to you? Do we really need to look at the link between computer games and violence again? Didn’t that debate end many, many, many years ago, and with the conclusion that no, computer games don’t make you violent?

The only difference in the debate about computer game violence in 2015 as compared to 1986 is that today it’s been taken up by the social justice warriors, whilst before it was pushed by right wing evangelical Christian types.

There’s nothing new here. Computer games are sexist, racist and violent, and they warp the minds of the young, blah, blah, blah. Do we really need a comic book to be talking about this tired old nonsense again?

I don’t care if this story is coming out on the side of computer games, and gamers, it doesn’t matter. The debate is old, irrelevant, and I don’t want to read about it. I have no interest in ‘Gamer-Gate’ because it’s bull****. The whole thing is bull****. The social identities of the authoritarian nut-cases might have changed, but the bull**** remains the same, and I don’t want to rehash old controversies that have been debunked decades ago and are not even worth wasting any time on in 2015.

‘Survivor’s Club #1’ is nothing. It’s just another new/new/old comic book that is pushing the same old agenda as all of the other new/new/old comic books that make up the US comic book industry in 2015. It’s not saying anything new, it’s not connecting with any cutting edge issues of today, and as a forty something year old guy who is getting increasingly fed up with young girl protagonists and white male guilt identity politics bull**** it has absolutely nothing to offer for me. I had high hopes for this one. I should have known better, what a fool I am.



Rating: 3/10 (Yet another in a long line of stuck in the past, yet obsessing over PC identity politics comic books from the progressive mind of the mainstream comic book collective)