The Spirit #16

So I never actually post scans of what's pretty much my favourite comic book right now. Scratch that; totally my favourite. The Spirit is a sundae of awesome, drizzled in awesomesauce and topped with super-cool whip and cherries of spectacularness.

It should be properly consumed, not just picked at.

(I'm a little sleep-deprived.)



It's funny, just over-the-top enough for a pulp feel, and the Spirit's adventures are exactly that. Adventures! I could gush for hours about this, really. If you like things that are good and things that are comic books, it's required reading, really. XD

But...

Frank Miller writing/directing a Spirit movie scares me, especially with the tagline "Down these mean streets a man must come. A hero born, murdered, and born again." Not to mention a poster about Central City screaming. Methinks he's confusing Denny Colt with undead Goddamn-Batman in a fedora.

The only thing that could make me like this book any better is the Flash turning up (it does take place in Central City, after all), being turned into a woman, then becoming a re-occuring character as a cranky-but-silly reluctant love interest that has all kinds of entertaining cat-fights with Silk Satin while Spirit and Ebony watch with popcorn. That would be awesome.

Okay, I'll go to bed now.

Batman: Night Cries

Reading comics is totally how I get into the zone for writing (or, you know, gay porn), not that them or my bottle of whiskey is really helping right now. The whiskey is, however, making my pet bird even funnier than usual, even if her claws and feathers are partially obscuring the top of my screen right now (as per usual. She's allowed.) I did get a lot written down in a notebook while I was sipping a margarita and waiting for my avocado salad at this Mexican place this evening...

So, this is one of those books I put off reading for, oh, years? As usual, a mistake, although I have a few... issues... with this one. Night Cries is about child abuse, and is about as no-holds-barred on the issue as a DC comic is gonna get. Interviewing a boy who's dad "played mommy" with him and other creepy cases, all the while a vigilante being confused with Batman is killing off the abusers. Mix in Jim Gordon dealing with his own childhood trauma effecting his ability to be a good father.

Written by Archie Goodwin and art by Scott Hampton.



Pretty? Yes. Cheerful? Not even close. But it revisits the idea of Batman not wanting to scare children with his persona in a unique way that's... kinda cute.

( I don't want to frighten you. )

Non-sequitur: Today I bought a Batman backpack and a The Batman kick-ball with Robin on it, too. (Also a ton of cheap nail polish, two shades of bright pink!) Yay! I have a thing for punting balls over my mum's roof and back again for hours on a sunny day. No; I've never broken any windows doing it. (Although I did shatter a window with a speed-pitched koosh ball back in grammar school... that was crazy, man.)