Mindless Ones

I can’t actually believe it’s been 15 years since we last had an actual Ambush Comic on the shelves. Barring a few minor cameos the last comic fully dedicated to Irwin Schwab was 1992’s Ambush Bug: Nothing Special. The best thing about this new mini, is that Giffen & co. have picked up exactly where things were left. Same supporting cast (Cheeks! Argh!yle! Jonni DC), same relentless punning and bad gags, same irreverence for the DCU at large (the best joke involves literal women-in-refidgerators, and gives DC editorial a rightly deserved kick to the balls).

Giffen’s art is relatively unchanged – slightly looser perhaps, which might in part be due to the fact that he’s spent the last decade doing breakdowns for other artists. But it’s a joy to see him on full art duties, and the Bug brings out the best in him. Also Robert Loren Fleming is back on dialogue. Where did he go? Do you think he left comics in pursuit of *shudder* artistic credibility? Well this should put the kibosh on that…

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I don’t know how I could’ve missed it. They arrived in Spain, for God’s sake! I had visions of Indiana Jones style adventures in ancient spanish forts – I think there could’ve been nazis – but clearly I am t3h fule. Where else would our merry band of wreck heads end up on their european jaunt but Ibiza? I mean, where would they be without the distant thrumming bass, the all night bars and dingy alcoves just off the heaving, red lit dancefloor, sweat plop-plopping on their foreheads? It’s the young liar’s natural habitat, only just as hot outside the clubs and soundtracked not by Sonic Youth or the Pixies, but by Paul Oakenfold and Arsenal football club chants.

And, before I get into this issue’s tunes in detail, this is something I feel I have to address.

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It seems like an awfully long time since we found ourselves under the Ultimate Man’s protection. Think back. Waaaay back to the mid-90’s. The comics industry was beginning to drag itself out of a self-inflicted slump of pointless speculation and multiple foil variant covers. Chains and guns were beginning to lose their appeal and the world was rotating towards a newer, shinier vision of superheroes. Pop, rather than Metal was going to be the order of the day in the lead up to the Millenium it would seem. Superheroes were going to be fun again. No more torturing paedophiles or deacpitating rapists. At the forefront of this movement we have Waid’s hyper-fun Flash and Impulse comics; Busiek’s Astro City with it’s progressive nostalgic vision of meta-comics; Robinson’s Starman that sought to build an engrossing and believable mythos for his pet character, whilst never forgetting that being a superhero is first and foremost fucking skill. Moore was shaking off the dust of self-publishing and gearing up his ABC assault. Miller’s DK2 lurked on the horizon ready to introduce his bezerko psychedelic bigfoot parable on the world. And somewhere lurking at the sidelines was Morrison and Millar’s AZTEK.

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And I am that beholder.

Comics bought and read on Saturday the 5th of July 2008.

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In 2005, when I was 29, I underwent a second teenhood, and my flat at the time was more like a non-stop party than anything resembling a home. Seriously. You couldn’t get any sleep on a Friday night, and when you’re expected to go to work at 10 o clock the next day, that’s no fun at all. Having said that, I really enjoyed rolling in four hours afterwards and joining in with the drug-bleached bedlam. There’s no way, just three short years later, I could keep up with myself then, and that’s probably for the good, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was a great deal of fun while it lasted. Obviously we had very little money, and we were all boys, so the flat was always a fucking state and the decor and furnishings were sparse and basic to say the least. Inspite of this, however, I was always fairly house-proud – I just had to figure out how to spruce up the living room cum kitchen on a tight budget.

So I raided my comic book collection and 100% came to the rescue.

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Other comics that came out LAST week.

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Persepolis, graphic novel and movie reviewed.

Autobiography has become the life blood of mid-ground comic books. Sometimes the lives recalled are woven into the fabric of dramatic and horrific events of global historical importance, sometimes the events described are decidedly quotidian. In American Splendor (Vertigo, 2008 ) – which often immortalises lives of no particular consequence other than the fact that they are being lived by human beings – author Harvey Pekar rants, ““I’ve done a lot of stuff in my life I’m not proud of but at least…” and then lists such non-acts as “never got high and shot my wife in the head” and “never conned my country into a needless war to boost my ego”.

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Comics bought and read on Saturday the 21st of June 2008.

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It was with surprisingly little fanfare that Tank Girl made her return to comics last year. I guess being such a zeitgeist shagging style icon of the 90’s might dilute her current hipster status and subsequent fiscal worth. Not to mention having an absolute mega-bomb of a movie hanging around like a a stinking albatross. (Seriously, I don’t understand how a movie featuring Ice-T as a Kangaroo could be bad, but that piece of cinematic dogshit achieves it in spades). But when IDW resurrected the franchise I for one was glad to see her and the gang back (relatively) unchanged and unscathed.

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