Coming Very Soon from CARTOON FLOPHOUSE: "Those Unstoppable Rogues Party Hard!"

This is the manual you'll need to buy to survive current world events! Only from Cartoon Flophouse humor comics!

Current Reading: DIANA PRINCE AS DIANA RIGG! Sekowsky's New WONDER WOMAN (from 1968) and Charles Portis's TRUE GRIT

Wouldja believe....Diana Prince once emulated Diana Rigg?

Let's face it....I was never much of a DC fan growing up (let alone a book such as WONDER WOMAN) but these days, between some of my favorite books (UNKNOWN SOLDIER, PHANTOM STRANGER, the DC horror anthologies) and my never-ending quest for Frank Robbins and Gerry Talaoc material, I've grown to really appreciate Silver and Bronze Age DC Comics that I slept on during my formative years. It's been fun re-discovering DC Comics of yore, an acquired taste for me compared to the very accessible, "grounded in reality" (by comparison) Marvel Comics that Stan Lee brilliantly sold readers on.

Before I was born, the mighty Mike Sekowsky drew a run of late 1960s WONDER WOMAN comics (written by Denny O'Neil) that I'm currently reading and they're a lot of fun, mainly because how blantantly the adventures of Diana Prince and blind Chinese mentor I. Ching are riffing off of the Diana Rigg/Emma Peel THE AVENGERS. They've comically dispensed with Wonder Woman's corny costume for some Mod Carnaby Street haute couture and espionage antics. It's not really a Wonder Woman book (and I understand this entire take was an embarrassment and a poor seller at the time) but I'm diggin' it, daddy-o!

Side by side, I'm more than halfway through TRUE GRIT by Charles Portis, the book that inspired both the John Wayne and the Coen Bros. adaptations (neither movie I have seen). It's a pretty interesting Western, written in the voice of a 14-year-old female protagonist....and while I keep hearing the TRUE GRIT movie by the Coen Bros. is borderline interesting/borderline boring, I will rent it when it comes to DVD. When all is said and done, I found it hilarious that TRUE GRIT, with (I think) five Academy Awards nominations, did not win one award...but THE WOLF-MAN won an Oscar! Cosmic jokes never go out of style!

Another nifty painted cover....

If only the interiors of today's mainstream comics were as good as their painted covers....Another doosy from the upcoming FEAR ITSELF: BOOK OF THE SKULL. Why can't the insides be this exciting anymore?

Komark's Remarkable Kovers for DOCTOR SOLAR, MAN OF THE ATOM

One of the best features of the Jim Shooter reboot of DOCTOR SOLAR over at Dark Horse are the Michael Komark painted covers. They get better and better with each issue. Here's the one for the current issue, #5. Beautifully done.

THE CULT OF HENK CONTINUES....Cowboy Henk goes Stonehedge iconic...

One of my all-time favorite comics character is hands-down the loopy, surreal COWBOY HENK by Kamagurka and Seele (a.k.a. COWBOY JEAN, COWBOY MAURICE, etc.) from Belgium. Well, as it turns out, I'm not the lone fan on the planet of this long-running outrageous strip (myself and the editors of RAW notwithstanding....) Here are some global tributes to the character, who is literally getting bigger and bigger every day...



Ride on, Cowboy Henk! Ride on!

Two of the Worst Comedies I've Seen All Year...Back to Back...And Both Starring Steve Carell!

I like Steve Carell a lot on THE OFFICE...Michael Scott is one of the funniest characters ever conceived on American television...

....so it's particularly painful to report that DATE NIGHT and DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS (a remake of the great 1998 Francis Veber comedy LE DINER DE CONS), which I just saw back to back on Friday and Saturday nights, are so vapid and unfunny, they almost make FUNNY PEOPLE look like an accomplished arthouse classic. Both star Carell (who maybe should not rush to exit his hit TV shows if he's going to make movies like these). Both are nearly impossible to sit through at home on DVD...How the hell did people make it through 90 minutes of this crap in a movie theater?!?

To call these two 2010 stinkers broad comedy is insulting to broads all over the world!

By the way, if you want to see Zach Gararfinkulosopolis officially jump the shark, DINNER is the movie for you! Poor Paul Rudd, didn't he read the script? Maybe Carell is so big a star, he hires a mole to read his scripts for him. Or a bat. It's hard to believe that these smart actors would want to make this movie based on the "jokes."

Once again, I can't muster up the energy or enthusiasm to post a photo to represent this diptych of drek. I will try to close my eyes and forget this weekend, cinematically.

I only pray that Veber got a truckload of money for letting the Hollywood studios crap all over his concept. He's a great filmmaker and a good guy in person and his work is more deserving than this shabby treatment.

To recap....2010: Not exactly the Year of the Comedy in Hollywood...

Movies I've Enjoyed Recently: CYRUS, BLACK DYNAMITE, SE7EN (yes, SE7EN!!)

I've seen a lot of random movies lately, it's been a mixed bag of highs and lows.

The biggest disappointment was no disappointment because based on  the trailer, I knew I wasn't going to connect with INCEPTION. It never even began to draw me in and reminded me of that empty mindfuck exercise known as THE MATRIX (never saw that one more than once, never saw the sequels). I don't generally like these kinds of movies, esp. when the mythology (and lead actors) are so weak.

Another movie that could been way better but at least was decent for what it was: GET HIM TO THE GREEK with Jonah Hill, who I think is way funnier than Seth Rogen. Not as unfunny as FUNNY PEOPLE, not as funny as 40 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN. Somewhere in the middle, I guess.

Speaking of Jonah Hill, I really enjoyed CYRUS with John C. Reilly and Marisa Tomei. I had just seen THE WRESTLER, which was okay and she was in that. But this was a nice little dramedy, not as wacky as one would expect from these folks, even though Reilly was basically a toned-down version of that STEPBROTHERS character.

BLACK DYNAMITE is one of the best movies I've seen recently. That's a spot-on send-up of the blaxploitation flick and has one of the best presidential encounters in a movie ever. Right up there with the ending of HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANMO BAY!

Oh, yeah, late to the party, I finally saw the David Fincher film SE7EN and love it. It may be the first Gwynth Paltrow film I ever liked (maybe because of the way her character ends up?). Well, the first IRON MAN, I guess. SE7EN is like a better, tight version of Fincher's later work, ZODIAC, which I liked but did not love. This was a taut, enjoyable movie and it had Nine Inch Nails all over the soundtrack (a SOCIAL NETWORK precursor).

Also saw the doc MAN ON WIRE - interesting and hair-raising, even though you know he'll survive.

I'm too lazy tonight to post a photo to go with this article. Please Google it up yourself or close your eyes and imagine it.

What I'd like to see now, stuff I've missed like SPEED RACER, GREENBERG, and the new TAKEN wannabe UNKNOWN.