I am reading a free preview of FLCL Omnibus over on Net Gallery, and it is good to see this series coming back from Dark Horse. While Manga seems to come and go, there are few if any staples in this industry that have managed to keep an audience as people drift in and drift out of Manga and Anime. FLCL is one of those very few Anime’s that seem to keep on coming back because the audience wants it, and it is good of Dark Horse to reprint this as a massive Omnibus of the entire story line. There are 394 pages of FLCL goodness on this one, and while it might be expensive at first, you know the prices are going to drop online to a penny almost overnight. The sad part is that you can also read this online for free from various outfits, but it might be worth actually going out to purchase the Dark Horse Omnibus.

FLCL revolves around Naota. His life in the city of Mabase is interrupted by the arrival of Haruko Haruhara who bursts on the scene by running Naota over with her Vespa scooter, then giving him CPR and hitting him on the head with a blue vintage Rickenbacker 4001 left-handed electric bass guitar. Later, Naota is shocked to find Haruko working in his house as a live-in maid.Since then, Giant Robots from Medical Mechanica have been coming out of Naota’s head and cause more problems for Naota. Haruko is using Naota for her search for the Pirate King, Atomsk, because Naota’s head is the only one that can create a passageway for the robots. It also puts her at odds with Medical Mechanica, the monolithic industrial corporation. At the same time, Naota is being watched by Commander Amarao, who believes that Medical Mechanica is out to conquer the galaxy. The combination of circumstances gets Naota involved in a three-way battle between Haruko, Amarao and Medical Mechanica. The underlying theme is Naota’s coming of age as he becomes more mature and learns to express his feelings.

So the story line is a pretty normal anime story line, nothing overly surprising here or shocking, really what this edition about is the staying power of the story line, and being run over by a Vespa, getting hit in the head with a guitar, and finding the new housemaid is absolutely nuts. In line with Japanese tradition, giant robots are also part of the scene, and that is what makes this awesome. Dark Horse has not changed anything, all the original art work, all the original backwards reading, with some awesome new art work that litters the book all the way though. You are getting an awesome mix of new stuff and old stuff, and a story line that has survived a long time in this industry.

I will rate this one five of five stars, I am a big fan of FLCL, and I hope that this book does very well. In so many ways, Dark Horse is taking a huge risk given the level of scanning in the anime market, and the ability to download this puppy free without any issues. This one is worth buying though, so feel free to pick up a physical copy and add it to your reading library.

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Written and Lettered By: John Layman

Drawn and Coloured By: Rob Guillory

Colour Assists: Taylor Wells

Image

Up until now we have known quite well that Tony has a twin sister whose name is also Toni, but, with the ‘i’, did you catch that? (Don’t worry, their parents didn’t do that to be cruel. Her name is Antonelle in full, but like most she goes by a diminutive version of.) What we didn’t know up until now, despite the strong hints pointing directly at it in the pre-released #27, is that she also has strange powers that, much like her personality, are the exact opposite to those of Tony. Yes, I’m talking about biting live creatures and seeing their future – Cibovoyant, if you wanna be fancy.

She’ll bite lovers, family, friends and lick paintings if it means she’s helping someone out, even if sometimes that someone is her. She is the warm hearted, level headed, dependable, lady version of Tony, his better half shall we say.

Other than the revelation that was Toni’s gift, this issue was quite slow. We followed Chow and Toni on a mission to seek revenge on his rival chef and paint thief, Cremini. The pace was addressed, however, in the comments section claiming it to be ‘the calm before the storm’ and I for one believe them! By the end of this issue and thinking back to the previous story arc’s, you begin to realize that Tony has built up a seemingly impossible to beat number of enemies. He’s got everything from ‘vampires’ to his own kid willing to go after him. There’s no way this is going down quietly.

Despite it’s slow rate there were still a great number of laughs to be had. The flavoured painting auction with the battle between Chow and a rival chef was to die for, I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard at someone giving the finger in awhile! And as per usual, you can expect some subtle and foolish background poster’s from Guillory that are sure to keep you paying attention.

Revenge is a dish best served cold and there is no place this seems more true than Chew comics. No one is safe, but, they are all seemingly unaware. This is a recipe for a delicious, in your face, action packed, gruesome future for Tony and his friends and I’m sure it will be fun for all (on this end of the story at least).

Officially half way done and winning award after award for the consistently well crafted stories Layman and Guillory push out, it is a wonder if you aren’t already reading Chew.  If you are one of those people, I encourage you to pick up the first trade at the very least. You’ll be hooked from the start and if not, it was only 10 bucks.

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Story By: Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton

Art By: Jamie McKelvie

Colours By: Matthew Wilson

Letters By: Nate Piekos of Blambot

Dark Horse Comics

What can you expect of a Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day comic writing mash-up? One truly unique and hilarious experience that proves great one-shot comics still exist! The Guild: Fawkes is by far (many galaxies, in fact) the best video-series related comic I have read to date. It even outdoes it’s already grand comic predecessors’ by adding a whole new tone to my favourite character, Fawkes, the so-called “epicurean”. In an immaculate portrayal of the fall of his anarchistic, piggish side, we find the new Fawkes: a vulnerable, weak hearted man with a school-boy crush on his arch enemy – Codex. (D’awe, ever cute!)

Upon discovery of Fawkes’ hidden secret (by way of balls in mouths, a game of MASH, screwing over a friend, and tons of alcohol) his guild, The Axis of Anarchy, up and leaves. They claim to need guidance from a stronger, more ruthless leader and they all seem to agree that Riley, Zaboo’s abusive ex-girlfriend, seems to fit the role exactly.

What happens to a man whose heart has finally won the battle against his mind and has lost near everything he held dear? He goes on a mission to find his true self, of course! This involves leaving his job, school and lifestyle behind. His ultimate decision in search for self-discovery comes with a Fluffy suit and a fate like scenario at Mega Game-O-Rama Con when he runs into the only thing he has left, that one cute spazzy ginger.

The evolution of Fawkes and Codex’s relationship is one worth attention. After all, who doesn’t love a good geek romance story? The “Cowkes” love-fest is a bomb waiting to explode, but, you can’t help but cheer them on. Egotistical, E-peen stroker falls for cute, hermit-like gamer girl? Who wouldn’t want that too work!? And now that his list of epicurean adventures is completed, I think the chances of success may have raised a bar. That or the timer on the bomb just skipped ahead a few weeks…

One major contributor to this issues greatness is the art team of Jamie McKelvie and Matthew Wilson. I’ve only ever had one experience that I can recall with McKelvie’s art (A Loki one-shot in Marvel‘s Siege) and at that time it didn’t take much impact on me. Now, however, in this fresh and exciting story with these well-thought out characters and absurd ideas and dialogue to work off of, he blew my mind. His style is very simple, cartoon-esque and scratchy, which reflects The Guild‘s tone immensely well. These are simple people, leading in-game lives with a knack for blurring the lines between right and wrong in terms of friendship and love, as I said, prefect combination. He manages to throw in some of his own silly imagery in some panels, which added a warming personalized touch, showing his sense of humour since the high majority is that of Day and Wheaton. His most successful endevour though, was his highly amusing, shockingly similar looking, in game toon for Valkyrie – you won’t miss him! Errr…her.

I cannot urge you enough to pick this issue and entire series up. Every time I think I’ve seen the best Felicia Day has to offer, she steps it up by co-writing with other major influences in the world of geek culture and finding new ways to show us the fun of being part of this community. She shows that there is no shame in embracing your inner geek, whatever they may be. If you like boardgames, talk about how much you enjoy them. If you enjoy comics? Talk about how you enjoy them. You won’t find friends and great discussions by sitting silently in your fan-boy tower, alone.

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Well on a sadder news front for Comics Forge, it looks like our kickstarter is not going to meet its objectives, with 3 days left to go, and only 200 out of 10K pledged, we are pretty much so not going to make it. And in a lot of ways that is ok, because we are going to print with the first ever Comics Forge Presents and you will be able to get it later on online or digitally.

I would have personally loved to see this bad boy happen, because we think this is a really important part of the process, who we are, and how we want to be viewed. We love comic books, and there are so many wonderful people out there creating some of the most amazing stuff possible that it is sad that we won’t get our full funding, but on a happier note, we are going to do it anyways.

Kickstarter would have been wonderful, but if we scrape together everything in the change jar, we will be able to get this bad boy printed.

We have worked with some amazing people on this project, so a big shout out to those who have been working on the project already:

Steven L. Frank from 5Finity Productions who is providing so much helpful support in getting the comic book to the printers, formatted correctly, and other management and heavy lifting support for the project

Justin Zimmerman from Bricker Down Productions who has gracefully let us print some of the most amazing art work and story line out of Other Worlds for our first ever edition of this comic book.

Mike Lawrence for the most amazing cover I have ever had on a comic book I am going to print. He really knocked this one out of the ball park for us, and that just makes you feel good, happy, warm, and delighted with his work. You need to check out how he did the cover art over here on his blog.

All the Comics Forge Gang for putting up with me while trying to get this puppy out the door, including late edits, late payments, late conversation via e-mail, late everything as this project is headed towards the finish line. I really love you guys, and you are all so totally awesome.

Our Lawyer, Seaton Daily who asked why we shouldn’t do this, then gave us a million and one reasons why we should. Your lawyer should be helping you get to where you want to go, and for a small business startup lawyer, Seaton is about amazingly wonderful.

As the Kickstarter winds down, with little to no possibility of a good finish for this puppy, I want to thank the people who did back the project. Your support mattered, and we will send you a copy of the comic book anyways because you all rock. I expect to send this to the printers in June, and get it back sometime in August, so look for us to contact you later on down the road so we can send you a copy of the comic.

Thanks everyone, look for this to happen anyways, snatching a winning strategy out of the jaws of death is always fun.

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For all you zombies, ghouls, geeks, horror aficionados this weekend, the 25^th through the 28^th of May mark this year’s Crypticon Seattle. This year promises to be huge, mostly because this is the one and only Horror comic book, movie, media, tattooing, body painting, zombie makeup examples, and horror writing contest that there will be in the Seattle area this year. With ZomBCon basically dead for this year after an awesome last year, Crypticon is it, you make it or you miss it.

There are going to be some outrageously awesome people at the show this year. Doug Barley from Hellraiser, Dee Wallace from the Stepford Wives, J. LaRose from Saw, Richard Kiel from James Bond 007 fame, Marilyn Burns from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Voltaire, Ricou Browning from the Creature from the Black Lagoon (one of my favorites), Don Coscarelli from Phantasm, Sonny Landham from Poltergeist, James O’Barr, Gangrel, Cerina Vincent from Cabin Fever, John Skipp, Dannielle Harris from Halloween, and Robert Jayne from Tremors.

Not only that there are some awesome movies to see, shows to watch, and the Bioware party that has become legendary in its own right. The Bioware party is so legendary that I am surprised the hotel is letting them do this again this year; after all, with all the bodies in the courtyard last year and people dragging butt on Sunday, it was quite the blowout.

With all that, and tons of great vendors, photographers from all over the place, as well as our own general foaming at the mouth support Horror anything community this year promises to be even bigger and more awesome than last year. Last year I am surprised anyone walked out of there alive. Oh and the Zombie walk, and the makeup contest, and the Blysster Press book contest, and the people hanging off of meat hooks, and getting money stapled to their butts, you get it, not PG-13, but an awesome celebration of the horror culture with some odds and sods thrown in for good effect.

We hope to see you there, as we are vending and being unofficial photographers of the show, so watch our flickr and smugmug pools, and on the show floor updates as things that are awesome happen. Hope to see you there!

If you don’t hit Monday morning exhausted, you did this show wrong.

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