Every week I do a column full of comic book reviews as I’ve done since March 2003 and currently published at Comic Book Resources. Then, after the reviews post, I try to come over to my blog and expand on the thoughts and ideas listed there. Sometimes it’s profound, sometimes it’s gibberish, but it’s always about comics … let’s see what we get this week!

What? This week’s reviews …

SERIOUSLY? GONE FOR TWO WEEKS? First of all, shut up.

I overestimated my resources, trying to keep up with blogs, National Poetry Writing Month, the family man thing, the day gig thing and, oh yeah, launching a pop culture phenomenon called Komplicated all in one month. Something had to give. Family’s fine. Komplicated is fine. The rest … we do what we can. That’s no excuse, that’s just how it is.

MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU … OR NOT: Comics came out on May 4th, recognized as “Star Wars Day” by those in the know due to being able to sound like Lucas memorable phrase, “may the Force be with you.” There’s May 25th (the day the first movie hit) for purists, but this one is no secret. Were there any Star Wars comics for sale from the license holders, Dark Horse? No. There was, admittedly, one for Free Comic Book Day three days later, but that’s not the same, is it?

I love Star Wars with a passion that borders on being scary. I’ve spent literally thousands of dollars through out my life to help Jett Lucas and hs descendants have college tuition. I get that. The idea that Dark Horse can’t consistently publish a Star Wars comic that I would pay for is inconceivable.

I know what’s wrong, of course. By and large, the artwork has been posterish and lacked dynamism. The stories have been byzantine and lacked quotability, memorable action (aside from Yoda’s Death Star ploy in Infinities, which just lacked visual grandeur) or gripping characterization. Some of that has to do with Lucasfilm’s twitchiness, probably, but still.

Would I ever pitch stories set in the Tatooine sandbox? Dark Horse doesn’t take cold pitches and failing to break into comics the last ten or so years has proven to me that such an approach is like lottery winners getting hit by lightning. Possible, but unlikely. So I pine for saber swinging, star destroying high adventure and move on, keeping my dollars in my pocket.

JUST SAYING: I’m gonna need Steve Rogers to know who S.W.O.R.D. Is. Seriously.

I also need Lex Luthor to be, I dunno, smart. Sometimes, not just off panel.

Yeah, I saw the typo in the Deadpool review that spell check let slide. You have to roll with it sometimes, and I type weird.

I miss Dwayne McDuffie.

THAT’S THE NEWS, AND I AM OUTTA HERE: That’ll do. Be back next week.

Probably.

Playing (Music): “Disappointment” by the Cranberries

Mmm. Yeah. 30 poems in 30 days … maybe not when launching a new niche pop culture phenomenon like Komplicated. Whee. What’s worse is that I stumbled just four poems from being done. Argh. Anyway …

Extra trips are never a concern for the determined.
Collected grocery bags
piled on floor or seats
never an impediment.

Like crimson ants
following chemical breadcrumb
laid down by identical trailblazers
Thought of “how much work”
forbidden distraction.
One foot follows one before,
another step right behind
religion of momentum
shark science
leaving complaints and cessation
for grasshoppers and others
not so driven to build.

“Inexorable”
By Hannibal Tabu

Oy. Just a pit stop between doing big things like booking Tracie Thoms for an interview on May 29th. You know, like you read about.

Playing (Music): “She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5

Some time ago (no idea when, too busy to look at file creation dates) I wrote a bit of flash fiction called “Paperwork” (also on Fictionaut) and this is a kind of prequel to that … more after the actual story …

Rayvon “Lil’ Ray” Carver woke up reluctantly, grumbling at the thin sliver of sunlight penetrating the slit between his dust-covered venetian blinds. He sat up slowly, scratching his shoulder and edging down one strap of his black wifebeater while stretching the other arm and yawning. His face was screwed up in a frustrated expression, still angry at the dream that left him now clenching his fists and glaring at them. He heard a distant sound, like a muffled bass kick from a speaker, but didn’t pay any attention to it.

Standing up, he pulled on a pair of jeans that lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, adjusting the belt so they hung low off his backside. He glanced around, taking note of the sticky-sweet smell in the air that was kind of like bacon, but not quite. He stepped over the sawed off shotgun laying on the threadbare tan carpet and walked out of his cluttered bedroom.

A gust of wind blew past him as he was about to pass the bathroom door, and he glanced in to see, with some surprise, that the window had been shattered. He looked down to see the crow, still twitching and bloody, that had flown through the glass at a speed that must have been impressive.

“… the f***?” Rayvon muttered. Then he heard the first scream — a high, gurgling sound that was equal parts pain and surprise — that he couldn’t have known would be one of a long series he’d hear that day.

Stepping over his nephew’s knock off Hot Wheels cars, he walked out into the living room to see that there was smoke blowing outside the plate glass living room window. His sister and her cornrowed husband were nowhere to be seen, and neither were the kids. The dining room chairs — a sad attempt at modernism with a gold-sheened metal curving around some dark brown cushioning — were all knocked down, as was the table, with a bowl of cereal on its face, milk and Cheerios scattered from the front door to the pale linoleum of the kitchen. The wooden front door hung just slightly ajar, and through the crack Rayvon could see the screen door (which, oddly, opened the opposite way of the door behind it) was hanging off one hinge.

Rayvon walked out into the courtyard of the building — a three floor complex in residential Hawthorne, complete with a security door that looked like it had fended off its share of desperate would-be intruders and a non-functional fountain with more dirt than water in it — and gasped when he saw her. Hovering several feet off the ground, closer to the railing for the second floor where the concrete stairs joined it, looking as beautiful as the day they’d put her coffin in the ground.

“Denisha …” Rayvon whispered. White billowy cloth, as translucent as the faux-Kente patterned rayon dress his mother had worn to Denisha’s funeral, fluttered around her as she seemed illuminated from some source that could not be determined.

Flanking her on either side were two indistinct figures, their heads covered in the same flowing white cloth, hands outstretched as they took note of him. One pointed as the other gestured, pleadingly and wordlessly, at Denisha. She turned to look down at him, her smile slow and warm like the childhood summer days he’d spent in South Haven, Mississippi.

“Lil’ Ray,” she said, her voice framed with the tinkling of crystals. “Where you been darlin?” Spreading her hands wide at the chaos, she continued, “We’ve been holding this moment for you.”

She gestured towards the street, and he looked through the thick glass to see SUVs and hatchback tossed aside like toys, fire and blood everywhere as bodies lay scattered amongst the chaos like forgotten toys.

Rayvon looked back up at Denisha, his mouth hanging open, uncomprehending.

Her smile widened as she said, “I told you your dreams would come true. I told you, your dreams would come true …”

With that, the muffled bass kicks started happening again, but they weren’t the rhythmic pounding of a sub-woofer, but the expression of explosions, coming ever closer …

The penultimate paragraph really makes me personally happy, and the dialogue of Denisha, of course, is taken from the Classixx remix of “Psychic City” by Yacht. Oh, here comes work, gotta run …

Playing (Music): “I Just Died In Your Arms” by Cutting Crew