Kevin Smith X Batman

Before you start commenting about how I don’t know shit about comic books, know that you’re right; I indeed don’t know shit about shit when it comes to comic books. I’m a casual fan at best. Only months ago did I start reading comics weekly again. I’ve dabbled in the past but I have no opinions on which artists are the best for which characters, which authors ruined the sanctity of characters, and who to worship (aside from Grant Morrison). I have though been looking into the Kevin Smith debate.

The community seems evenly split between the fans and the haters. I would like to take this post to address the haters. From what I was reading this morning on forums/blogs while I was looking for scans, the main hate seems to be that he “ruins” Batman by injecting his own type of humor/storytelling into it. This almost always leads to the supposedly rethorical question “how does he keep getting to write when he does such a piss poor job!?”. It’s actually not a rethorical question; he gets to keep writing because people like what he does and he pulls the numbers the publishers want to see. Whether or not you’re completely outraged at what he writes isn’t important anymore because other people enjoy it (present company included). So what if it’s not the dark gloomy Bats we know and love? Comedy hasn’t killed anyone yet (well….joker disagrees). Smith said it himself that this was out of continuity so why make a big deal out of it. Adam Carrolla always says you should ask yourself “Will this make me happy or make me money?” before you do something. Does whining about trivial shit like this make you money? If so then go ahead, by all means, you’d be a fool not to do it. Does it make you happy? Lord I hope not…saying this as a nerd who just wrote a big blog post on Batman, please go outside.

The thing is, the beauty of comic books is if you don’t like it, you don’t have to read it. I mean sure I know there are some fans who will read every single thing that comes out with the word “Batman” in it but if you don’t like this side story our precious Mr Smith is writing, just ignore it. It will go away I promise. Like a friend told me a few weeks ago

“The beauty of recycling is…I don’t have to do it if I don’t like it”.

Replace recycling with any activity you don’t like and you’re golden.

Now onto what I really wanted to talk about: What makes a Kevin Smith book? Again I’m new to this but as someone who enjoys his works on the big screen, it’s easy to spot his influences on paper and now I just want to have fun pointing out a few of them I noticed as I read his Widening Gyre series last night.

Aquaman “comes to Bruce’s” rescue as the oceanic wildlife warned him someone was in trouble. As it turns out all the dolphins heard was a woman screaming from the shore of a desert island. I should specify screams of a very hot woman, on the beach of a desert island, with Bruce Wayne. As you obviously figured out by now, the only danger she was in was sexual exhaustion.

During the books, Bruce gets closer and closer to this woman (I don’t want to go too much into spoilers), and at the same time, gets further away from Selina Kyle. You see her come back a few times trying to sink her claws back into her favourite playboy billionaire.

After a little Smith-esque back ‘n forth, Batman bails. An issue or two later, she tries again

You’re still wondering why this is still Smith-esque? The next page gives a pretty big hint:

Could you imagine Selina Kyle saying that with any author? In the last issue Batman and his new friend Baphomet interupt a fight between Deadshot and the Cat in question only to find out she orchestrated the whole thing for Bats to pay attention to her. She starts crying and shouts that she even wore all her old costumes for him. Let’s recap shall we.

• A discussion on whether Selina is a cougar (Happened in the few panels before the first scan)
• She does cosplay for him
• She’s not wearing any panties

That’s exactly the kind of humor I’ve come to expect from the writer/director. Hell you almost expect a scene with Bruce and Dick hanging out in the Batcave talking about anal or something. The next page after the teary eyed “I wore a mask for you, she never did that” Catwoman is one page that, despite not being a signature Smith moment, I still wanted to put in here because I laughed my ass off at this point.

I just love the look on Lawton’s face that just says “Yeah…I set myself up for that one”.

One of the most flagrant examples of another kind of humor that Batman is used to: His new girl’s nickname for him. If you re-read the first scan I posted, you’ll see Bruce explaining that she calls him Deedee. For 6 issues you’re left wondering

“Why in the world would the world’s biggest badass let a chick, no matter how hot she is, call him by such a girl name?”

Well, what if it wasn’t so girly? This page in issue #6 explains it all

If that doesn’t scream “Clerks” I don’t know what would. Unless of course her nickname for him was “37″ but that might be a bit too much, both in terms of obvious reference and also in terms of physical impossibility since it’s one night. Seriously…37 in one night…I don’t buy it.

Here is actually the one that seems to have the world riled up

After his first time with the batsuit against an explosion he squirts a few drops in his pants. Now apparently the fans think it’s ridiculous to bring down Batman to such a low level, but isn’t that why Batman is so damn special? Because he’s human?

Here’s what I think is the biggest example of Smith putting himself into his work

Playing with the idea of an @TheGoddamnBatman has to be the best thing ever. If you know Smith, he’s a Twitter king. It’s probably where he has the biggest following (see: Southwest incident) and will sit down at his computer and just tweet people for hours. Now that’s dedication. And now that dedication is put in comically in Batman. Man…@TheGoddamnBatman…I wish.

I want to put in one last scan which isn’t from Widening Gyre but from his previous work on the book Cacophony. I don’t think I need to explain this one at all

Yes. You read that right. Joker took a peak at the Batdick.

Patterson takes on DC?

This week was the somewhat-special anniversary of the Superman/Batman comic books as they reach issue #75. Not exactly a milestone but still impressive nevertheless. To celebrate it they made a double sized issue with one main storyline (which was actually kind of “meh”) along with several more shorter stories. One of which was done by Brian Azzarello, most commonly known for his work on the series “100 Bullets” and an artist he’s worked with several times in the past; Lee Bermejo. As a throwback to Bill Patterson, the 2-page story was done entirely in the art of Calvin & Hobbes. My take on it? Pure fucking genius. Instead of rambling on and on about it, here it is

Edit: It was brought to my attention that I made a mistake and wrote Patterson rather than Watterson. My apologies.

King of Iron Shit Tournament

I love Fighting Games. I love movies. Too bad those two aren’t Reese’s peanut butter cups. Once in a while the movie industry graces gives us a movie based on one of our favourite game franchises. We all remember the movie “Street Fighter” from 1994, the one that became Raul Julia’s legacy since he died shortly after. The Mortal Kombat also made it’s debut with a half-decent adaptation. We try not to speak of the one based on Itagaki’s horrible franchise but since it’s so bad, one could make the argument that it’s true to the source material. Now it was the turn of Namco’s hit Tekken to get the big screen treatment.

Now I’ve learned that in video game movies, you have two end resulsts:

either a) The movie is so bad that it’s entertaining (Street Fighter the Movie)

or b) The movie tried to take itself seriously and failed miserably into something not even worth the download (Dead or Alive).

Once you keep that in mind and not expect a masterpiece, you’re pretty much ready for anything.

I came into this movie VERY skeptical simply because of all the crap I read about it, but thing is I tend to like bad movies. I get some weird enjoyment out of it so please, what you read here isn’t a review. It’s just my take on things.

I have to give them props for one thing, the characters looked like their video game counterparts without looking too ridiculous (except for Heihachi’s hair). Nina William’s costume was perhaps a little too much but it was exactly like it’s polygon basis, anyway she gets so little screentime in that costume that you quickly forget it. Otherwise, Eddy Gordo/Law/Raven/Jin/Bruce/Christie/Anna/Miguel and even Yoshimitsu looked the part. Kudos to the costume desginers.

Too bad what was in the costume wasn’t so great. I’m not sure whether the problem was their lines or their execution of them but damn did some of that shit sound corny and downright bad. Jin’s first line of the movie just sounds out of place, cliché and forced. One of Christie’s lines at the bar seemed like it was pulled right out of a 1980′s porn script (you’ll know which one when you hear it). Kazuya’s dialogue in general could be pulled some sort of “Evil Corporate Leader text generator”. The same goes for Heihachi and Jun. Just generic dialogue that fit their archetype (the old guy who fights for honor and the mother keeping her son/student away from the real fight) which we’ve seen a thousand times.

The worst part of the movie is definately the end fight. It’s lackluster, short,  and ends totally anticlimactically. I guess technically the big fight is the one you get moments before then (trying to remain vague to avoid spoilers before the break).

Don’t get me wrong, Tekken does have redeeming qualities (to some people such as myself). The fight scenes weren’t bad and visually the movie is actually kind of good. They’ve built a post-apocalyptic world and built it well. I liked how the terrain of the fight stage would change as if it were selecting a different stage in the game. You could also see some of the characters’ signature moves when they were fighting which is nice to the hardcore going “hey I recognize that ground tackle”. Luckily for them, the actor who played Eddy Gordo (Lateef Crowder) actually is a practitioner of Capoeira which made his moves look much more fluid.

The best thing about this movie though, and the reason why I’ll be buying this on dvd (probably used though, maybe not full price), is Christie’s ass. Every single pair of pants she wears dips down on the back enough to show ass cleavage and considering how hot Kelly Overton is, the eye candy in this movie is pretty damn good.

Yes I will be buying this on dvd. Hell, I already have Dead or Alive on dvd, can’t be worse!

I did go through the movie and screengrab a whole bunch of scenes to spare you the trouble of going through the movie and knowing what happens. Basically these are the ValNotes (clever word play on cliffnotes, ah ha!).

After the break!

Enjoying the Whole Week of August 9th

What have you planned this week?

Mandatory NerdPerv Post

I am quite disappointed in myself for not even hearing about this earlier. It happened in April and I was unaware of this? My Star Wars nerd cred just went down a notch, perhaps even two considering just how amazing this is.  Slave Leia is becoming more and more common and an icon to attract nerds (Guilty!) and this is by far the best examples I’ve seen so far. I mean yes Comic-Con Slave Leia meet up was pretty hot but that’s a nerdvention so it’s not that unusual. This is a public event.

A carwash operated by Slave Leias and one lovely lady sporting the delicious ripped white suit Padme had towards the end of Episode II.

Pictures after the break to keep this blog still very SFW (no nudity, just very good stuff).

The last Inception post you’ll ever have to read…

If you haven’t seen inception yet stop reading this shit and go see it. I don’t care if the theater is closed at this time, sneak in and watch it. I don’t care that people are already calling it Most Overrated movie ever, it’s my #1 this year so far (with Kick-Ass following closely behind).

If you’re not brain dead then you’ve seen it and mostly likely had quite a few questions about it. Was it all a dream? Who really got incepted? What was Cobb’s real totem?

Wonder no more, this guy’s post is the penultimate explanation to the movie. Yet he managed to keep the satisfaction I had of not having a simple/direct ending of the top falling or staying spinning.

Read on, it’s a mindfuck:

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/07/the_ultimate_explanation_of_in.html

Enjoying The Whole Week of August 2nd

It’s monday morning. You got a whole week of work ahead of you. What better to cheer you up than to give you a bunch of things to look forward to during the whole week! I’ll try to do these every monday but you’ve all seen what happens when I say I plan on doing something regularly. Here goes episode one of Enjoying The Whole Week (shitty name I know, give me a better one if you think of it).