Classic comic book cover of the week

Jack Kirby did the cover art but he had nothing to do with the horrendous stuff that lies between the covers of this comic book that came from 1976. I paid a buck for it today and it really is worth about a quarter of that price. It's all about the horrors of modern science and how cloning will lead to the whole world being killed by poisonous gas. I'm not shitting you. Really. But however bad this comic was, at least it wasn't Superman.

A tale of two comics

When I was a little kid I loved the superhero comics. They appealed to my sense of right and wrong and the world in them was pretty much black and white. Only the bad guys got hurt and that was fine by me.

Then as I went into my teens and early 20's I liked the superhero comics that showed a little more realistic side to their stories. I liked the comic book titles that had characters that had internal conflicts that affected their external world.

But pretty quickly I got tired of all superhero comic books because of shit like this:
When independent comic book companies finally broke the grip of DC and Marvel in the independent comic book shops across the country some gave us really interesting titles. But most gave us variations on the same shit that Marvel and DC had been doing to death for years, such as the title above for instance. The premise of that title is that the chick in the skimpy outfit is an immortal being who just happens to decide to go to work for the US Government and in the course of that work she runs afoul of evil people in the government who want to use her for their nefarious purposes.

I know what you're saying. You're saying, "Wow, really? That premise sounds like shit." And you're right. Basically this comic book series was a masturbatory fantasy. I'm a straight guy who likes to look at women in skimpy clothes but come the hell on, what's up with this:
It's just gratuitous. And the story sucked too. And yet, shit like this rules the comic book world.

Thankfully however since the rise of the independents there have been some good titles and stories out there. And this is one of them:
I know what you're saying, "That chick is in skimpy clothes too. That's just as gratuitous as as the other one." Nope. In this case the story is a noir tale full of twists, turns, betrayals, and a femme fatale. All the characters in this graphic novel are grounded in reality and are variations on criminal archetypes.

I don't buy comics much anymore, except for bargain stuff, but I do still read some graphic novels that I get from my local library. It's a good to see that even though the shelves of the comic book shop are still filled with shitty titles, there are still some good books being made. I highly recommend the A Criminal series of graphic novels. They tell grown up stories that are engaging and interesting.

White Guy to the rescue!

How would Asian sidekicks survive without white dudes to look out for them?