Born to a destitute existence,
J.Hues quickly rose to the prominent level of uncomfortably poor. His real name
is shrouded in secrecy but if you ask him he might tell you it's Jason Hughes
(Dammit!).
Nothing much happened until he
graduated from college with a completely useless degree in English, and then...
nothing much continued to happen. Subsequently, J.Hues found himself working
at a toy store. Later, through some strange accident he fell sideways into the
IT field and has been trapped there ever since.
To keep his sanity, he writes:
novels, poems, comics, grocery lists, checks (too many checks), fake doctor's
notes... Maybe someday he'll get paid for all this.
A genius in his own mind, J.Hues
uses various grammatical no-nos to mask his complete and total inability to
craft a single genuine or unique idea. He's never happy unless he is blathering
on with his own obnoxious opinions and ideas. Wait, are you still reading this?
Read the damn column already!
How’s that for hype… and you know it’s true otherwise you wouldn’t be here, chucklehead!
ROUND 1
I’ve got only one thing to say. I walked into my comics shop this week and saw in the front row a couple of Marvel books with their covers curling over in the corner as if they’d just spent their last… ahem (family column). Well at any rate, these covers had the sturdiness of a daily newspaper (and just you try stuffing the Sunday paper in a mylar bag! Of course, I’m talking about those damn Ultimate books that came out bound in tissue paper.
What’s stunning to me is that Quality Control at Marvel took a look at those covers and not only approved them for mass production but actually had the stones to ship them out. I mean we’re talking about the #1 book in the country (Ultimate War #1) looking like complete and total crap here. It looks like a flimsy pamphlet you’d get on the college campuses talking about how the Catholics worship Mary and eat evil cookies. I know things are tight at The Bill & Joe Show but have some pride in your bestselling line of books. If the cardstock is too costly just go to the standard. Hell, no cover would almost be better than those (the good news is they come pre-rolled for easy shoving in your back pocket as you ride your banana-seat down to the corner store to pick up some licorice and gum).
We should use these books to promote comics. When you hold it out to someone and it keels over like a limp piece of cheese or a dead rat you try convincing them that it’s worth $2.25 every month to have their very own limp cheese! And tell them that when they read it, the pages will curl right up with the covers so that it’s a constant struggle to keep it open and they’d best just read it on a flat surface. In fact, maybe they should tape it to the flat surface, because depending on how long they sat on the comic racks with their corners folding over and reaching for the ground (BAD gravity) they may be permanently curled now! Maybe a nice hot iron would do the trick.
ROUND 2
It’s that special time of year again and that means it’s time for the First of a new Annual Event here at Punches Central. Brandon covers ‘The New Hotness’ over at his weekly digs (you are reading ‘Ambidextrous’ right here at Silver Bullet every Monday, right?) so what better place than here to cover ‘The New NOTness.’ The Turkeys. The Lemons. Turds. Pieces of crap. I can’t believe they published that. And so I present for your reading pleasure…
The First Annual Byrne-Liefeld Excellence Award Honors (or BLEAH):
The BLEAH for Best Cover Enhancement goes to the Ultimate line this week (and presumably all month) for their flimsly-ass gift-wrapping paper covers.
The BLEAH for Best Comics Adaptation To Another Medium goes to the WB’s Birds of Prey for taking a great premise and turning it into an intriguing future-concept and then utterly failing to make the show interesting or any of the characters likeable or endearing.
The BLEAH for Best Comeback goes to Rob Liefeld (hey it is named after him) for hyping some new Youngblood projects and other peripheral projects and as expected, failing to produce anything… yet.
The BLEAH for Best Licensed Comic goes to Thundercats for taking a show that was never very groundbreaking in the first place and turning it into a by-the-book ‘relaunch’ that doesn’t even break new ground over what the cartoon did. The single most disappointing MAJOR launch of the year.
The BLEAH for Best Single-Issue Story goes to Superman #188, in which Superman goes on a horrible rampage proving himself a menace and a real danger to society only to be forgiven by Lois because it turns out he was… upset.
The BLEAH for Best First Issue goes to Forever Maelstrom #1, a concept that has been languishing for years (originally slated to be a part of Malibu’s Bravura line) and after all that time still manages to suck worse than any comic SINCE Malibu’s Bravura line proving that it is possible to drive away all of your readers in just one issue.
The BLEAH for Best Ongoing Series goes to Lab Rats. You knew this one was coming. I demand my leatherbound hardcover collection with the gold-embossed logo and even one of those satiny bound-in bookmarks. I would chuck the old King James off of the bible stand and have readings from The Book of Poe.
The BLEAH for Best Marketing Strategy goes to New England Comics for putting out a three-issue mini-series… on the same day. The Tick: Big Xmas Trilogy is a fine little project and all, but all three issues, consisting of 20 pages of art/story each for $3.95 each shipping on the same week had to be a real killer for sales. I mean we’re talking 60 pages of story (66 if you include the 2-page ‘Tick & Artie’ back-ups in each) for $11.85 (or $12.00) isn’t exactly a great deal.
The BLEAH for Best Monthly Publication goes to Spawn for proving that as long as you're soliciting monthly, you can call yourself a monthly comic, regardless of the actual frequency of your title.
The BLEAH for Best Action Sequence goes to The Titans for their battle… with… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
The BLEAH for Best Spokesman goes to Stan Lee for filing a breach of contract lawsuit against the company he put on the map, and that uses his moniker before each book in their now infamous ‘Stan Lee Presents.’
The BLEAH for Best Relaunch goes to Marvel Knights Volume 2. It’s mind-staggering. They had nothing with the first one and then in no time at all they trot out the same basic premise and they have even less substance the second time around. An embarrassment to the imprint.
The BLEAH for Best Publisher goes to Marvel Comics, for publishing strictly based on pre-orders to create false hype and inflated sales figures, causing extra stress and grief for small to mid-sized retailers and pissed off casual fans who can’t get the books when the retailer sells out and it isn’t deemed Marvel Must Have worthy so that Sony will buy them out of their self-inflicted financial doldrums.
The BLEAH for Best Distributor goes to Diamond Comics Distributors becase… well they’re the only one’s eligible.
The BLEAH for Most Ethical Publisher is a tie, going to Wizard and Diamond. The former for being the premiere publication about comics while publishing comics, thus shamelessly promoting your own comics and the latter for being a comics distributor with a monopoly on distribution and signing a deal to publish comics (in this case the new upcoming Disney line).
And finally, the BLEAH Of The Year Award goes to the assholes who created Civilian Justice.
Get in on the excitement with the Fan-BLEAH Awards. You can email your entries to me at the above address (just click on my name below the title) and I can compile them for a future column, or if you want to just go all public you can go on over to the message boards as well.
BLEAH: Celebrating the Worst that Comics Have to Offer.
We’ll be presenting nominees throughout 2003 for these coveted awards next year so keep your eye out for the real ‘gems.’
ROUND 3
Everybody and their uncle claims to know what’s wrong with comics. And they’re all wrong. But I do know. It’s really quite simple.
I’m not writing any of them. If I was writing a comic (especially for one of the major publishers) then it would be such a glorious production that it would literally sell millions of comics each month, launch me to superstardom where I would gleam from the covers of a plethora of mainstream comics promoting the greatness that is this medium, picking up licensing deals, producing a film that eclipses the paltry box office totals of such hack films as Spider-Man, Star Wars and Titanic, branching out into all sorts of other mediums, doing the talk show circuit, hosting Saturday Night Live with KISS as musical guest and making comics the most beloved medium in all the world.
CrossGen. Dark Horse. DC. Dreamwave. Image. Marvel. You know what to do.
ROUND 4
And now for some sad news. It looks like WizardWorld.com has officially been shut down, as it’s owner (800America) was apparently run by a bunch of crooks. All employees of WizardWorld.com and all of the other 800America branded companies have been handed their termination papers, and many are still awaiting payment for their most recent work.
And now for the sad news. This latest development has absolutely no impact on Wizard the magazine. Yes, it’s business as usual at the magazine that is single-handedly dumbing down an entire industry, as they’d long since sold their interest in the website (for some bizarre reason) along with their journalistic integrity and pride. And so truly this is a day of tragedy for we were almost free from the yoke of the mighty Gareb Shameless and his book of fart-jokes.
To celebrate the fact that they’re still in publication they’re going to dress some jackass up like Doctor Doom and have him fight the Wizard Bunny in a busy intersection in New York City and take lots of pictures and have that be a ‘Feature’ story in their next issue. And their in depth interview with Joe of The Bill & Joe Show should prove equally insightful.
Wizard: So, Joe how come you’re so awesome?
Wizard: Joe, clearly you’re the best thing to ever happen to Marvel. How does that feel?
Wizard: Gosh, Joe you’re like the bestest artist that there ever really was. How cool is that?
Wizard: So Joe, why is it that Marvel is the best publisher on the planet?
Wizard: Hey Joe, pull my finger.
Ah yes, we have a simian running the free world with his trigger-finger pointed at the Middle East and Wizard is still in publication. I do believe the End Times are truly upon us.
If I remember my manual, in the event of a nuclear attack, I’m supposed to curl up into a ball under my desk and put my hands over my head to protect it from lethal blasts of heat and radiation. If anyone needs me, I’ll be ducking and covering behind my toilet.
K.O.
disclaimer: the opinions expressed in this column don’t necessarily represent those expressed by any sane and rational adult; they barely represent the views of the author and they barely resemble coherency as it is; nevertheless this column is chock full of satire and parody (as protected by laws protecting such things) and as such don’t sue me. look at it this way, this is all for fun, don’t believe a word of it (even if it is true), don’t take it too seriously, and if you do take it, take it all with a grain of salt—better yet have the truck back up to your house.
