dvandom

                    Dave's Unspoilt Capsules and Awards
         The Week's Picks and Pans, plus Awards of Dubious Merit

Standard Disclaimers: Please set appropriate followups.  Recommendation does
not factor in price.  Not all books will have arrived in your area this week.
It sucks to gray out from standing up.  Rants, Capsules can be found on my 
             homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants 

Capsules:
     Short, relatively spoiler-free reviews of books I actually bring home
(as opposed to reading in preview form in the shop or online).  If I get a
book late due to distributor foulups or whatever, I'll put it in the Missing
section.

     Thunderbolts #107: Marvel - Mostly lots of running fights in the wake of
the Wellspring being blown open, the kind of world-spanning thing that
probably won't even get mentioned in any book not written by Nicieza.  :/
We're starting to get a taste of the sort of team that's coming up when Ellis
takes over in #110.  Cover kinda gives away the ending.  Mildly recommended.
$2.99/$3.75Cn 
     Gen13 v3 #1: DC/Wildstorm - Part of a line-wide reboot, the original
Gen13 kids are getting their origins over again, but nastier.  I think.  If I
could read more than 2/3 of the words in the opening scene I might be more
certain, but black on dark blue is a REALLY stupid coloring choice.  Yeesh.
Someone spank whoever (letterer or colorist) was to blame for that one.  Just
because it's readable on your computer screen doesn't mean it's readable on
the page.  Anyway, Gail Simone shoves plenty of people of both genders into
metaphorical refrigerators to show how nastyevilbad IO is, eh.  Mildly
recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     52 #23 (of 52): DC - The Magnus plot is moderately amusing, although
Garrity did it much better in Narbonic.  The Black Adam plot may have
resorted to a cheap and obvious trick, but it was a cheap and obvious trick I
loved every moment of.  :)  All in all, recommended.  $2.50/$3.50Cn
     Green Arrow #67: DC - Pretty standard training sequence with evil master
sort of story, with a few brief interludes on other matters.  Decent read,
kinda ugly art.  Mildly recommended.  $2.99/$4.00Cn
     The Devil's Panties #4: Silent Devil - It's an enjoyable webcomic, but
the annotations really make the hardcopy worth getting.  Jen Breeden's life
is weirder than most fiction.  Strongly recommended.  $4.95
     Dork #11: Slave Labor Graphics - Ku Klux Klan of the Cave Bear, standing
around wishing someone would invent fire so they could light their cross.  If
you can't laugh at something like that, you probably won't like this comic.
If you can, there's plenty of other wrongfun humor densely packed into this
tome.  Yes, much of the time it's clearly just being offensive for the sake
of being offensive, but Dorkin's got the ability to make that sort of thing
funny.  Note, unlike some issues of Dork, this one is all short-form stuff,
shrot strips and one-panel gags all crammed together.  So you get a lot of
material.  Strongly recommended for the hard to offend.  $2.95.  (Oh, and
there's some nudity and gore and cussin', for those trying to avoid that sort
of thing.)
     PS238 #18: Dork Storm - A somewhat talky issue, setting up conflicts for
later for the most part, but full of good stuff.  Williams continues to do a
great job here.  Strongly recommended.  (Can I retcon this as last week's
Best Book?)  $2.99

Gone Missing:
     Stuff that came out some places this week and that I wanted to buy, but
couldn't find for whatever reason, so people don't have to email me asking
"Why didn't you review X?"  (If it's neither here nor in the section above,
though, feel free to ask, I might have forgotten about it!) 

     Current list as of 10/11:

     Still missing Keif Llama V2.1, Stinz Tribals (which Diamond's system
says "will come in" June 14, and nothing else), Gold Digger Perfect Memory
v5, Gold Digger Tangent #2, Devil's Panties #3, Elric #4, the Transformers
Beast Wars poster, Fred Perry's S-Guild #1, the Amelia Rules TPBs, Ninja High
School #142, Dr. Debunko: the Short Stories.  Add G-Fan #77, not that I
review that, just felt like complaining.


Awards:

Best Books: Devil's Panties #4, PS238 #18, and Dork #11 with an asterisk

"Because Villains Aren't Stupid Enough To Stick Around For A Lost Cause"
     Award to Thunderbolts #107

"Suckful Retirement Plan" Award to Gen13 v3 #1

"But Did They Refill The Pool?" Award to 52 #23 (of 52)

"A Parting Gift.  In German" Award to Green Arrow #67

"Cooooooookies" Award to The Devil's Panties #4

"NINA" Award to Dork! #11

"It's The Mask Principle, Son, Roll With It" Award to PS238 #18

Dave Van Domelen, "But I tell ya, I really DO got an invisible friend!" "SURE you do, Ben, SURE you do..." - The Thing and one of the nice men in white coats, Dork! #11