Yesterday (Saturday) was my sister's birthday. Or, rather, today's her birthday, but it's sort of a weekend thing. Whatever. Anyway, we went for dinner (my sister lives in town, see) at a local Japanese place. It was... Japanese. What more can you ask? She ate sushi, too, and didn't share any. Of course, since her sushi choices were squid and sea urchin, this might have been a good thing...

Anyway, I never got around to ranting about this week's comics, did I.

Tellos #1: It's... Yet Another Fantasy World. This one's Distinguishing Feature is the large number of anthropomorphic races... Not particularly great reading, but it doesn't suck as much as a lot of things.

Gunsmith Cats, Bean Bandit #5: Nothing like a good car chase... with a good gun battle... and more examples of one of Sonoda's favorite characters, Bean Bandit, being a total bad-ass. It started as an honorable vehicular duel between Bean Bandit, Rally Vincent (Our Heroine(tm)) and third-string tough girl Riff Raff (yes, that's really her name) over rights to a big shipment of cocaine that Bean is to smuggle (being the bad-ass driver that he is). Riff just wants to beat Bean so she can be known as a big bad-ass, and Rally wants to stop Bean from working for drug smugglers. But Riff's backer gets tired of this honor stuff and just opens up on Bean. Of course, since Bean Bandit is such a complete bad-ass, a little thing like being shot in the forehead isn't going to stop him (bullet proof headband and a thick skull...)

On the Marvel side, Avengers looks to finally re-emerge from Guest Writer Limbo (not that the guest writer is particularly BAD, but he's no Busiek), Thunderbolts carries on in blissful semi-villainhood and character development a go-go (and the Sales Raising Guest Star avoids the trap of Guest Star Overshadow by getting his butt kicked just as much as the regular heroes; but then, how much Sales Raising Power can Archangel have anyway?). Deadpool continues on in Weird-O-Vision, as DP visits the Hellhouse (hangout of Marvel villains so fourth-string even the Bookworm, the Water Wizard and the Terrible Toad would scoff openly) with his apparently-ressurected wife and portly German pilot in tow. And Earth X continues being a steaming pile of angst (but then, it has an X in the title. Duh), as everything's hopeless, one of the narrators is a complete ass, and those little exposition sections at the end of the book are really irritating. You know, in my day we wrote the important backstory into the story itself...

Artesia #5 continues the start-up arc to what looks to be Another Fantasy World. Albeit a more interesting one than most. It's got a very 'low fantasy' feel to it, and while there's tons of magic, you don't have wizards going around laying waste to whole cities which is the bane of many perfectly good fantasy tales. Instead, the magic system is more subtle, which somehow makes it a whole lot cooler, a whole lot more... well, wonderous. Let's face it, anyone can write Honkin' Huge Power Levels, and most people have, to the point where only a true genius can keep it interesting with that alone. But when you stop rending continents and start focusing on smaller things... Anyway, if this one has a fault, it's that it's written in a very stilted sort of language, like an old legend or some such (this is obviously intentional). It's not off-putting if you can get into that sort of thing, but if you can't, it just sounds really goofy. The other little problem is there's nudity about every other issue (not really cheesecake, but more just sorta there), which doesn't bother me any, but might bother some.

Strange Attractors TPB 1: Speaking of the ol' sensawonda, I came across this one in one of the comic stores this week. Apparently it's a collection of some small-press B&W comic, and it's actually pretty cool. A lot of the stuff feels like it's straight out of some Buck Rogers or other Space Fantasy story, with interplanetary societies, defended by a space police of buff 'Rangerettes' and ruled by an immortal, surly technologist. With, of course, a brave group of space rebels whose exploits are released (in heavily sanitized form) as underground comics solely to piss off the immortal dictator. Our main character, of course, is a huge fan of these old comics, even though the rebels were suppressed long before. Of course, she gets sucked into great events (there's even a pseudoscience explanation for why, but it still essentially boils down to "She's at the center of things because she's the heroine. Shut up and read."), but finds things aren't quite as black and white as in her comic books... If there's a single flaw in this one, it's that they end the TPB on a cliffhangar. You bastards! That's not fair!

Todays' Costume Boy Sightings: None.

The Morning Weather: Cool and clear.

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