Posted by
Unknown
- Friday, September 27, 2013
The fruit of a successful Kickstarter,
Henchmen, the debut series from new publishing banner
Robot Paper, is the story of Gary, former office supply salesman and former husband, who tries out a new career: henching. In many ways, Henchmen is a classic superhero comic. It features an epic confrontation between bowling ball-based superhero Striker and bowling pin-based supervillain Head Pin-- the twist being that creators
Jamison Raymond and
Ryan Howe spotlight the henchmen rather than their super-counterparts. It's spandex and explosions, but it's a meditation on feeling expendable and lost. The fact that this particular villain dresses his underlings (and by extension, Gary) up as paper mâché bowling pins - the purpose of which are to be set up specifically to be knocked back down - is an efficient way of hammering the point home. For those already sold on the comic, turn back now-- thar be spoilers ahead.
Efficient is a good way to describe Raymond's writing on the whole. Henchmen's narrative is deft and agile, confronting Gary's depression, failed marriage, lost job and attempted suicide in the opening pages, all with a swift pace and a lightness. Don't expect Watchmen levels of weight. We as readers partake in Gary's sadness, but the comic doesn't dwell on it. In the hospital after his Tylenol overdose, the doctor informs Gary that he is in liver failure and can no longer drink alcohol, to which he replies, "I don't drink. I only do over-the-counter painkillers." Offering a quiet, "Heh..." to his physician's stony glare.
These tragic moments are covered so early and so quickly because while Henchmen is a story about feeling expendable, it is also about finding your place once more. In a way that is not unlike a melding of Office Space and The Monarch and his dubious henchmen from The Venture Bros., Gary discovers that corporate incompetence extends outside of the office. As Striker and Head Pin exchange incorrect puns in a battle of (dim) wits, Gary remarks "Different job. Same idiot boss." It's succinct and efficient, yes, but it's about as sharp and fresh as a Dilbert strip.
Taking his life into his own hands, Gary convinces a small group of henchmen to follow him instead, escaping with the money. Once again, in a way that is not unlike Office Space, or almost every movie you've ever seen, Gary's sudden streak of leadership and out-of-the-box thinking saves his bacon. His depression is cured, his broken marriage begins to suck less, and his heroics gain him the respect of the local henchmen. The sequel hook comes when Gary, having a drink at the bar with his fellow hench-buds, reacts to a news story that Japan will begin manufacturing Henchbots, threatening the job security of henchmen everywhere, by suggesting they start a union. Naturally, the organization of which quickly becomes Gary's job.
The story is a tight, quick package, which is simultaneously its strength and its weakness. It's a fast, pleasant read, uninhibited by any pretensions, but as a comic and a story is breaks close to no new ground. Even the hench twist has been done before. Readers looking for an enjoyable read will find it here, but don't expect to be wowed.
I'd say the same thing about the art, too. It's competent and unobstructive to the reading experience. The backgrounds are simple, or flat, and the line work is clean-- though in the coloring process, the whites of a few dozen eyes were sacrificed. There's a page that sticks out to me, however, when Head Pin is revealed for the first time. The panel takes up two-thirds of a page, and while Head Pin himself is very detailed and well-shaded, he's up against a flat purple gradient. It's the second-largest panel in the book, and most of its negative space is a flat purple gradient. If there's anything about the art I'd consider a misstep, it's the lack of background details in featured panels. I get that this is a two-man operation on a shoestring budget, but I hope, going forward, that a little more effort can be squeezed in where it counts.
Overall, Henchmen is a solid debut, and while I don't think the story is the funkiest of funky-fresh, the notion of organizing a union of henchmen has juice. It occupies an odd liminal space in Comicdom, though. It may be too 'literary' to appeal to the mainstream comic reader, and it may be too quick, too simple, too well-tread for the more stuffy graphic novel reader (me). I'm intrigued about the future of the series, but I'm not sold on buying issue two just yet. If I had to rank Henchmen using the score from a bowling frame, I'd give it a 7-10 split. Unpack that as you will.
Posted by
The Dace Man
- Thursday, September 26, 2013
Check out episode 12 of The Dace Man Show with regulars Gibby Frank Ward and Michael Burhan!
Join The Dace Man this week as he breaks down the following:
::SPORTS NEWS::
- Oracale wins the boating competition and Gibby knows to much about it..
- Mayweather wants Miley to walk him to the Ring next fight!
- NFL Week 3 is in the Books
- What the MLB Post season could look like as of September 25th
::WEIRD NEWS WITH GIBBY::
- We basically mock Gibby and his inability to hold our attention
::CELEB NEWS::
- Weston Cage goes toe to toe with Tommy Lee
- Amanda Bynes is not mentally stable to withstand trial.
- Jon Gosselin is Now packing heat
- And More!!
Also The DaceMan's High Five: Top 5 PodCasts/ Radio Shows and count em 3 Douchebags of the Week all that and more only on The Dace Man Show
Step into the Crazy Train with Chris "The Dace Man" Dace this week on The Dace Man show....queue the Final Countdown!!!
Follow The Dace Man on Twitter: @TheDaceMan
Catch The Dace Man Show every Wednesday at 8pm EST on Mega Powers Radio.
www.MegaPowersRadio.com
www.BlogTalkRadio.com/MegaPowersRadio
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www.Twitter.com/MegaPowersRadio
Posted by
Anthony Mango
- Wednesday, September 25, 2013
After morphing together the cast of the Star Trek movies and television series here, artist ThatNordicGuy is at it again, merging the two actors that have played Charles Xavier and Magneto in the X-Men film series to create the "perfect" versions of these X-Men characters.
Obviously, these do not include the little children versions, as that would be incredibly difficult to pull off. They include James McAvoy morphed with Patrick Stewart for Charles Xavier and Michael Fassbender morphed with Sir Ian McKellen for Magneto.
Check them out! Pretty awesome, right?
 |  |
| Michael Fassbender & Ian McKellen Merged as Magneto | James McAvoy & Patrick Stewart Merged as Professor Charles Xavier |
What are your thoughts on ThatNordicGuy's artwork above? Leave us a comment below!
Posted by
Anthony Mango
- Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. made its long awaited debut with the pilot episode tonight. Judging by the massive success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the wide appeal that the program has, the experts have already deemed that it will be a huge hit. While that is almost written in stone, does it mean the show is good enough to warrant that?
It's time for another REVIEWPOINT as we break down the film's hits and misses. As always, we'll start with the bad news first.
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
THE MISSES
1. THE ABC NETWORK CHEESE FACTOR
Is it the cheesiest thing in the world? No. Is it campy? Not really...unless you count Lola the flying car, which I'm sure a lot of people will love because they'll embrace the absurdity of it, but that's just not my style. Still, I can't help but feel like this would be a show I'd enjoy a lot more if it were on a different network, namely NBC or CBS. There aren't many shows on ABC that I have liked in the past 10 years with FlashForward being the only one I can bring to mind - and if you watched that show, you would agree with me that it had a very different tone from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and most ABC programming. Everything feels a bit too clean. Also...and I know I'm going to catch heat for this...the tone is a little too "fun" and reminds me of Firefly, another Joss Whedon project, which I watched ALL the episodes for and did not like a single one of them whatsoever. I'm not opposed to fun, and I'm not one of those people that thinks absolutely everything has to be as dark and realistic as the Dark Knight trilogy, but I'd like for them to take it a bit lighter on the CGI, flying cars and jokey characters to an extent.
2. FITZSIMMONS, LEO FITZ AND JEMMA SIMMONS
For someone like me who absolutely loves puns, you'd think I would love that part of the duo at the very least, but I don't. This is partly due to the cheesiness that their characters exude. They're also rather bland and uninteresting so far and trying desperately to make up for it by exaggerating everything and trying to be these hectic comedic relief characters, but I'm just finding them annoying. I also am not looking forward to all the shipping from my fellow fanboys and fangirls around the world....particularly because they seem more like a brother/sister combo, and that's kind of creepy.
THE HITS
1. AGENT GRANT WARD
At first, before the show aired, one of my biggest gripes was that they didn't make the main character (or any of them outside of Maria Hill) people from the comics. While I do still maintain that notion and I wish Clay Quartermain and others will show up, and that they'll make use of the million or so S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that are in the comics rather than just continually making up brand new ones, I do have to bite my tongue a little bit with Agent Ward. Having a fresh, clean slate to start off with makes it so we can grow along with Ward without any preconceived notions. He's a bit wooden right now, but it's only the pilot, and they've put some groundwork in there to build up to some legitimate characterization down the line with his family issues and his hotheadedness. He's a much more likable lead than I anticipated he would be.
2. REFERENCES TO THE UNIVERSE
This show needed to prove that it was in the same continuity as the movies and it did very well illustrating that so far. Extremis, the Chitauri, gamma radiation, flat out mentioning Dr. Erskine and his super soldier serum, and so forth were all moments that made me smile as a fan. "I don't think Thor's technically a god", saying that there are cosplay girls parading around Stark Tower....awesome.
3. AGENT COULSON LIVES....SOMEHOW
At first, the mere write-off that Coulson only stopped breathing for a few seconds was bothering me. What a slap in the face to the movie, right? Then, with the allusion that there's more to the story than him just getting a vacation to Tahiti in his recovery, they sold me. I fully expect Coulson to turn out to be a Life Model Decoy and the revelation of this is sure to be a huge plot point that will develop over time. Putting that seed out there at the beginning of the show will pay off and every show that is worth a damn does this properly, just as they did here.
END NOTES
Melinda May still has to win me over and I don't like Fitz and Simmons, but the rest of the cast is good and I'm much less worried about this show's potential now that I've seen the first episode. They can certainly go down the wrong path and make this turn out worse than this, but there's just as much of a chance that they improve upon the flaws of the first episode. A slightly less cheesy tone, straying away from the things that remind me of Firefly, and keeping up the continuity will help it at least from my perspective. I'll be watching until they convince me to stop.
Would I recommend it? Yes. If you're a fan of the Marvel films, you'll get at least some entertainment out of this. Your mileage may vary on some of these concepts, though, either for the negative or the positive.
What were your thoughts on the episode? What should the next Reviewpoint be?
LEAVE US A COMMENT BELOW!
Posted by
Anthony Mango
- Monday, September 23, 2013
The final season of How I Met Your Mother has started with two episodes back-to-back, titled The Locket and Coming Back.
Rather than run down the episodes in synopsis format, I figured I would do a standard Hits & Misses Reviewpoint-style post.
THE MISSES
1. LILY THE DRUNK
One of the things this show has had a lot of fun with in the past is showing Lily as more of a raunchy, disturbed individual than her outside persona would appear. This time around, though, I found it simply annoying. Lily spent the entirety of the hour complaining, looking like a wreck, and just being problematic, despite having the absolute least to complain about and the easiest time out of every character.
2. NO REVEAL OF THE MOTHER'S NAME
The main thing I was hoping to see in this was the reveal of her name. Why? I don't know. I'm just tired of calling her The Mother or Yellow Umbrella or any other pseudonyms.
3. THE TIME FRAME
Maybe I'm jumping the gun, but I don't want to see an entire season of people talking on the phone and traveling. I want to see the How I Met Your Mother that I've watched for 8 seasons, where they interact in their apartments and the bar, can flash back to previous things and flash forward.
Likewise, am I overlooking something, or is there a plot hole with the train situation? Lily and The Mother (name would work so much better there, wouldn't it?) are on the train to Farhampton and we see that Lily has arrived. All leading up to this, we've been seeing The Mother arrive via a cab much later, when it's raining at night and it's either just before or during the ceremony. If she arrived with Lily, why is she re-arriving? Someone fill me in if I'm wrong here, please.
4. TED MOSBY, SAD SACK
Again, I might be jumping ahead, but if Ted spends the entire season acting the way he did in these two episodes, then no wonder a lot of people don't value the character, as he won't be entertaining. I want there to be a huge payoff to the character and this storyline with a lot of emotion, but just because I want drama doesn't mean I want Ted to be a totally humorless, pathetic and pitiful character. That's unnecessary.
THE HITS
1. THE MOTHER TOTALLY WORKS
We haven't seen much of her yet, but I completely buy into The Mother BEING The Mother. She seems to fit well so far in the orchestra of the cast. There's not much to her character as of right now, but I already find her very likable. For someone who has been told more times than he can count that he's extremely similar to Ted Mosby...I can see why Ted would go for her.
2. BARNEY IS SURE OF HIMSELF
I'm sure we'll see something down the line where Barney second-guesses the wedding (after all, we've already seen it with the ducky tie situation), but for now, I like that Barney isn't going straight into that.
3. MARSHAL IS STILL NOT CORRUPTED
Something I've always enjoyed about Marshal's character is that he could have the world shit all over him, but he's still very optimistic overall. Ted can be quite depressed, Lily can get quite psychotic, Robin and Barney can be manipulative and angry, but Marshal is always hoping for the best and expecting that out of everyone.
END NOTES
This was one of my least favorite openers for the show so far, so I'm disappointed. I'm very, very worried that this is going to feel stretched out and too different from the previous seasons. I hope the addition of Daphne to the cast isn't a big deal and she's gone within the next episode or two, as nearly every show that adds a character at the end just focuses on bringing a lot of attention on them and losing it on the main characters that got us to this point.
That being said, if I would put my trust in any show to pull this kind of a drastic thing off...it's How I Met Your Mother. The show has been brilliant so far and I truly think I won't be disappointed by the end. I also fully expect that I will cry when all things are said and done.
What were your thoughts on the episodes? What should the next Reviewpoint be?
LEAVE US A COMMENT BELOW!
