Chew Vol 8: Family Recipes

Title: Chew Vol 8: Family Recipes

ISBN: 9781607069386

Price: $12.99

Publisher/Year: Image, 2014

Artist: Rob Guillory

Writer: John Layman

Rating: 3.5/5

I think we can all agree Chew is a weird comic. A cop who eats bits of people to find out how crimes were committed in a post-avian flu ravaged world where chicken is outlawed and vampires wander about, intergalactic flame writing fills the skies, and Poyo, a fighting cock with cybernetic implants, is so cool and badass he could give James Bond a run for his money? Yeah that’s pretty weird. And yet - 8 volumes in! – John Layman and Rob Guillory somehow make Chew an even weirder series (by the way I’m using the word “weird” as a definite positive)! 

Right away, #36 opens with a fake-out – ha fooled ya, it’s really #29.5! We’re taken back to when Toni was still alive and about to cut off her toe for Tony to eat later on. She also helps out Sage who’s gotten in some trouble with the mafia. It’s interesting to see how Tony has been side-lined as the main character by a number of the female characters like his sister Toni, his girlfriend Amelia and his daughter Olive. 

There’s more family business as Tony helps out his brother Chow and Olive learns about her mother and father’s courting days through chomping on her dead mother’s bits (she’s inherited Tony’s powers – and then some!). I’m really glad that Layman’s brought focus back to Mason Savoy who we catch up with at the FDA Supermax Food Prison. He’s a great character who’s been missing for a while now – here he gets some awesome scenes as he continues his search for the truth behind the bird flu epidemic. 

The usual foodie craziness ensues in this volume (my favorite being the Pastransformers!) and there’s a Poyo splash page as he battles Mutant Corn and Superfish, but that’s not what makes this book weirder than the norm – hell, if you’re a regular (and why wouldn’t you be if you’re reading a review of Volume 8!), then this stuff is what you’d expect from a Chew book! 

Amelia brings out a gallsaberry (a weird alien plant from Yamapalu from earlier in the series – it tastes like chicken but it’s not) she’s been secretly growing and nibbling on. It’s been giving her weird visions and she’s been writing a novel in an alien language she can’t read. Pretty odd stuff. Couple that with Toni, who’s been wandering about now – dead – like a Jedi spirit nattering to Tony, the only person who can see her and that’s crazy. But there’s more! 

Family Recipes is one of the funniest volumes of Chew I’ve read in a while. Stoned Tony and John are super-funny – they become a rabbit and a fox in their minds – especially when they raid the pillow factory! 

If there was one criticism of this comic, it’d be that things are a little too easy for the characters when they face adversity. Toni defeats the mafia easily, ditto Olive and the Frenchie food terrorists, ditto Mason and the candyman – I realize they’re comedic bad guys but still, they’re framed as obstacles and they’re really anything but. Anyway it’s a very minor point in an otherwise brilliant book. 

And Chew Volume 8 is brilliant. 8 volumes in and the series is still exciting, original, inspired, and funny as hell. Layman’s writing was already very good but he’s getting better and better, while Guillory’s art is as beautiful as ever - he even shows a few new tricks in this volume with regards to the psychedelic weirdness. 

MtG Decklist - Tiamat

 

Tiamat has always been one of my favorite characters from Dungeons & Dragons. Ever since the cartoon from the 80's, I have been a fan of the 5-headed mother of dragons.

In 2015, there was a woman who had an incredible Tiamat costume at a local event I was attending. It's no surprise that she won the cosplay contest.

This deck is one of my favorite commander decks that I have in my collection.

Dungeons & Dragons: Infernal Tide

Title: Dungeons & Dragons: Infernal Tide

ISBN: 9781684056293

Price: $17.99

Publisher/Year: IDW, 2021

Artist: Max Dunbar

Writer: Jim Zub

Rating: 3.5/5

The forces of evil are back in Baldur’s Gate and this time, they have some truly heinous stuff planned in Dungeons & Dragons: Infernal Tides. As they try to force the plane of Avernus into the more natural world, a group of heroes will need to rise up and stop them. A group with a good balance of skills. Possibly, one with a miniature giant space hamster. Yes, Minsc and company return to Baldur’s Gate to kick butts.

I feel that there is a lot to like about Dungeons & Dragons: Infernal Tides. It brings back Jim Zub and Max Dunbar. All the creative teams have knocked it out of the park but Zub is a bit more involved with the properties and it just shows in how these tales are delivered. Quickly, you know who is who and what they can do. We see the threat quickly and the story builds them up. But, the one thing I think that might be the most important is that when you have a cast like the one that Infernal Tides has, it’s important to craft their individual voices. Zub makes them feel like a true party and while a character like Minsc has such a strong, outstanding personality, he doesn’t drown everyone out.

Max Dunbar illustrates another great Dungeons & Dragons story. Paired with Sebastian Cheng, David Garcia Cruz, and Neil Uyetake, Infernal Tides features a lot of great character design and action sequences. I thought there was a really great 2-page splash in issue 2. As someone who has been reading these adventures since Evil At Baldur’s Gate, it’s good to have a colorist that I think is perfect for Max Dunbar’s art.

Ultimately, IDW Publishing does Dungeons & Dragons right. I’ve been really happy with all of the stories they’ve done but I do feel there’s something a bit more special, exciting and enjoyable about Jim Zub and Max Dunbar working on a tale set in Baldur’s Gate. Dungeons & Dragons: Infernal Tides ends up as another truly enjoyable tale of Minsc and company that’s sure to keep fantasy readers enthralled.

Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider Modern Era Epic Collection

Title: Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider Modern Era Epic Collection

ISBN: 9781302949983

Price: $44.99

Publisher/Year: Marvel, 2023

Writer:  Jason Latour, Robbie Thompson, Dennis Hopeless

Artist: Robbi Rodriguez, Chris Visions, Vanesa R. Del Rey, Bengal, Tana Ford, Joëlle Jones, Nico Leon

Rating: 3.5/5

I think it’s fair to say that one of the happiest accidents of 2014’s Spider-Verse event was the appearance of—and then surprising longevity of—Spider-Gwen. There were other dynamic and impactful moments, of course (not the least of which being the surprising return and subsequent movie-star making of Peter Porker, Spider-Ham), but the Gwen Stacy of Earth-65 all but begged for deeper exploration from her very first appearance on panel.

That exploration, chronicled in Spider-Gwen Epic Collection: Ghost-Spider, might be one of the most masterfully understated alternate-universe stories in modern memory. The joy of Gwen is that the premise never spends time holding the reader’s hand in terms of exposition or “previously on” summaries. The alternate universe is allowed to exist without the creatives or editorial pointing to it and nudging the reader; it simply is.

It’s a universe where capital ‘T’ Things happened that we weren’t there for, up to and including Gwen’s origin and Peter’s death. Aside from a two-page spread explaining the Captain America of Earth-65 in (the second) issue #2, the variations of our popular characters are allowed to exist without comparison. All of this has the effect of making Gwen’s reality feel justified rather than opposed to Earth-616.

Moreover, there’s something stylistically and kinetically unique about Earth-65, specifically under initial artist Robbie Rodriguez but continuing throughout the collection. Hectic sound effects in unruly magentas, easy cartoonish action, and expressive and distorted characters… the book oozes a sort of punk-rock cool to mirror Gwen’s (tenuous) connection to her band, The Mary Janes.

All that energy translates to a sometimes hokey, tongue-in-cheek world, wherein bumbling minor villains like The Bodega Bandit never quite reach the same level of threat as the local police. Detective Frank Castle, apparently wildly unstable in all universes, strikes up a militant vendetta against Spider-Gwen (known in-universe, obviously, as Spider-Woman), and it’s this conflict that hangs over all the super-powered minutia of Gwen’s life.

If the collection can be said to have a failing, it lies in the diversion of the narrative from this wonderful and curious universe by the mini-event Spider-Women, which sees Gwen exhaustively dimension hopping and getting mixed up in the affairs of her mentor, Jessica Drew, and amiable screwup Cindy Moon (Silk) of Earth-616.

While we love to see Jess kicking ass and playing it cool, the event all but halts the fun of Gwen’s narrative, preferring instead to water down what makes her book so special. It takes Gwen’s starting point of multiverse wonder (before even that became tedious) and reduces it to a pedestrian, everyday hassle. Worse, it commits the most egregious crime, one plaguing Marvel superheroines as if by wrong-headed mandate: it depowers our protagonist.

Though the depowered angle isn’t overplayed within this collection, it bears remarking upon here – and every time we see the trope utilized – in a world in which women are already constantly under threat (and continuously losing agency by way of violence and legislature), the idea that taking a woman’s superpower away might be compelling or interesting or meaningful is downright idiotic. Yet it seems to happen to every Marvel heroine, from America Chavez to (repeatedly, exhaustingly) Captain Marvel.

Nonetheless, Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider is a volume that exemplifies what is so special about the character. It provides a fantastic example of how to tell an alternate universe story smartly, and though it stumbles at the end it still excels in aesthetics.

Life Goals

 

Ever since I turned 50 last year, I've been having dreams of what I could do if I didn't have to commit so much of my life working a 9 to 5 job in order to earn a living and make ends meet. 

There were many years that I dreamed about opening my own RPG/comic book shop. A place where people can not only come to purchase all things they need for their likes, but also provide a great place to be able to host games and community events. I'd love to be able to carry on the traditions of my former LCS Tony's Kingdom of Comics, but I've come to realize that I don't have the finances nor the business acumen to be able to start or run a business. Also, I've come to realize that opening a store like this would not be economically feasible or sustainable with so much product being made in digital formats now.

As of late, I've started dreaming of different endeavors that I could take on that may or may not actually turn out to be money-making but more of something I would enjoy doing and even be able to give something back to the community. Not nearly in the same way as Tony once did, but something nonetheless. 

For starters, I want to be able to actually commit myself to developing the various TTRPG ideas that I have had over the years like Salem By Night and Project Multiverse. I would also like to create a type of archive for homebrew TTRPG material. I have a ton of printed pages of old plot hooks, character sheets and other material I think other people would enjoy to read and possibly even use in their own adventures.

I recently thought it would be a great idea to open an account on World Anvil to begin the process of bringing these projects to light. I would like to also open it up for fellow creatives to help design the worlds I have trapped in my head.

There's also a part of me that would like to try and get back into the creative process of writing a comic book like I did when I was younger. Maybe even go so far as to actually write some of the crazy ideas I had for stories when I was in high school. I used to have a notebook I would write down ideas for stories. I still remember 1 or 2 of them that I think might actually be worth flushing-out into short stories. There was a time in my life that I thought I would become a published writer.

My biggest problems to accomplishing any of this are as follows:

• I feel like I don't have any time to devote to these projects because I have to spend so much of my time working. In other words, I've got bills to pay and need to make money in order to pay them.
• I have always been a procrastinator, and it has been very hard to overcome this problem. Even when I write for my blog, it is very sporadic and I typically write for only a few hours in the early mornings on the weekend because I'm awake, I don't have any serious disruptions and the mood strikes me.

At this point, I don't have enough money to be able to retire early, so I have occasionally taken to purchasing lottery tickets hoping that I'll win enough to be able to make this fantasy into a reality. I'm not investing into this theory as I only play $20 every few weeks. I know the odds are against me, but I only play the state lottery so at least my money is going to help local projects.

The reason for writing this is to get these feeling off my chest and out into the world. I feel that if you put something positive out into the world, there's a chance that it can actually become a reality. I would love it if by publishing this I could help to manifest a path towards achieving these dreams.

Dungeons & Dragons: Saturday Morning Adventures Vol 1

Title: Dungeons & Dragons: Saturday Morning Adventures Vol 1

ISBN: 9781684059430

Price: $12.99

Publisher/Year: IDW, 2023

Writer:  David M. Booher, Sam Maggs 

Artist: George Kambadais

Rating: 4/5

Five friends from our world have been transported to the land of the Forgotten Realms and, after fighting so many monsters and escaping many times from the Big Bad, Venger, they’re looking forward to possibly having a good night’s rest along with their pal Uni the Unicorn. But their sleep is interrupted when monsters attack their camp and a portal opens up. On the other side, find themselves in Waterdeep and trying to save a young girl cursed with Wild Magic that can surge at any time, a labyrinth with Beholders, and other monsters that test them to their limits!

The trade feels like it begins at the end of the last adventure from the TV show but without any sort of segue or introduction for brand new fans who haven’t watched the last episode which aired in 1985. Since the comic takes the same tone as the cartoon, there is a good chance it will be picked up by younger audiences, and it could have benefitted from some sort of introduction to bridge for new readers who are jumping in at this point. Aside from this, the story feels just like an episode of the cartoon, so fans of the original series will feel like they're on another adventure with the gang. Younger fans getting into playing Dungeons and Dragons might get a kick out of recognizing familiar game monsters and items included in the story.

The illustration team has beautifully captured the spirit of the original cartoon and brought the characters into a 2-D format. The coloring is especially beautiful when comparing the cartoon cels to the panels. The overall pacing and panel layout keeps the energy up throughout the story just like an episode.

Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins - Caleb Widogast

Title: Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins - Caleb Widogast 

ISBN: 9781506723747

Price: $17.99

Publisher/Year: Dark Horse, 2022

Writer: Jody Houser

Artist: Selina Espiritu

Rating: 4/5

Caleb Widogast is perhaps one of the saddest characters with one of the darkest backstories in Critical Role, or at least he was before Campaign 3. The Sad Wizard is a fan favorite among the denizens of “Critical Role Land” and perhaps one of Liam O’Brien’s most dramatically tragic characters. And for Liam, that’s saying something.

Being a comics fan and a Critical Role fan, these lovely character centered comic collections are one of my favorite things Critical Role is doing to enhance their brand’s world. What better way to do a lore drop than in the form of comics written by your friends? This particular book is written by Jody Houser who was a guest of Taliesin Jaffe’s Wednesday Club comic show on Geek and Sundry, one of the writers for Vox Machina Origins, the writer of the future Mollymauk comic, and a fantastic comic book writer of non CR books (seriously check her out, she’s awesome). With help from Liam himself and the DM Matthew Mercer, they’ve created a heart wrenching slice of Caleb’s beginnings.

I would call Caleb’s origins traumatic but I don’t think even that word is enough. However it is worth mentioning in that the content of this book is probably going to be triggering for some. Abuse, manipulation, murder, and violence are all par for the course here so beware if this kind of content might trigger you.

I loved Caleb’s book. I would love for CR to expand this prequel into a full YA novel like they did with KITH AND KIN and are doing with the release of NINE EYES OF LUCIEN come November. I love these little slice of life prequels that CR is doing, be it comic book form or YA novel.

I feel like the content here would be out of place for a new reader, having no basis for why this story is being told or its place in the larger story. Caleb’s story benefits from the foresight of what is to come for him and I wonder if it would seem odd to an outsider as to why we are bothering to tell this story. But the beautiful art and wonderful storytelling may be the hook someone needs to explore the larger universe. I’m just not sure this is a great starting point. But for an established fan this book is a must!