Author Archives: Alex K Cossa

Underrated: The Long Con

Posted on by

This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: The Long Con.

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if nerds and geeks were the last surviving members of the human race? That’s effectively the setting for this story, written by Dylan Meconis and Ben Coleman with art by EA Denich with M. Victoria Robado.

Because I’m not really going to summarize the story beyond what would be in the blurb, I’ve handily copied that from Oni Press‘ website for you below. This is from the first trade;

Five years ago, a cataclysmic event obliterated everything within a fifty mile radius of the Los Spinoza Convention Center—right in the middle of Long Con, the world’s biggest (and longest) pop culture convention. Underdog reporter Victor Lai barely escaped with his life, but his nerdy friend Dez Delaney—publicist for an indie darling comics publisher—wasn’t so lucky.

Now, Victor finds himself with the story of a lifetime—that the con-goers not only survived inside the center’s cavernous Cold War-era halls… they kept the convention going.

It doesn’t take long for Victor to get trapped inside, find Dez, and run afoul of a totalitarian sci-fi fandom ruled by a mysterious figure known as “the Special Guest.” Breaking out is impossible, and resistance is futile—but maybe, just maybe, Dez and Victor can recruit some unexpected allies from the warring factions of fans, pros, and D-list celebrities that still roam the show floor…

If this sounds like a serious book to you, then allow me to disabuse you of that notion. The Long Con, both trades, is very much a comedy book on the surface. Imagine The Lord Of The Flies goes to a comic/pop culture convention in an old silo with as many references to things that you can throw a stick at. There’s the on the nose technicalities and intricacies of Star Trek’s timeline, the ever popular discussions about reboots, retcons and relaunches… there’s a lot to enjoy here. Some of it is in the subtleties in the background of the larger splash pages, in the running jokes across the trades, but a lot of it is in the journey of Victor and Dez as they navigate the utter chaos of nerds living in a never-ending convention.

If you’re at all into nerd culture, and I assume you are if you’re reading this, then you’re going to find something in these two trade to enjoy. I had overlooked this series when it came out because I had assumed it was to do with a con artist, and the art style wasn’t exactly speaking to me for that style of story; it wasn’t until I found the trade and actually read the back I realized how wrong I was. I made the mistake of literally judging a comic by its cover, and I couldn’t have been more wrong about the nature of the story and how the art style compliments that.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who has written this off as something to ignore, and we were all wrong. And that’s why this is underrated.

Unless the comics industry ceases to exist this week, Underrated will return next week.

By The Horns: Dark Earth #8 really advances the plot in the series

Posted on by
By The Horns: Dark Earth #8

The blight continues to spread across Solothus in By The Horns: Dark Earth #8 as the Augernaut repairs near completion and Yun Ma’s plan for the continent begins to take shape. Across the ocean in Awahakan, Shanora Zeland her companions stir up trouble while searching for a way to catch up to Elodie.

I’ve found I don’t read as many comics as I used to these days, and yet despite my waning interest (or lack of time, which ultimately leads me to prioritize other things), I am always excited to read the next offering from Markisan Naso, Jason Muhr and Steve Canon, the writer, artist/letterer and colourist of By The Horns: Dark Earth.

Whereas the last issue was effectively an illustrated journal, By The Horns: Dark Earth #8 reads as an anthology with how Naso spends a few pages on each of the story threads that have been running throughout the issue. Given that the comic focuses on four different sets of characters in four specific chunks of the book, you would think that there wouldn’t be a lot of story progression. You could be forgiven for thinking that – if you were unfamiliar with the creative team. Naso and Muhr are experts of their craft and can wrench your heart, make you care about a villain and expose hypocrisy in fewer pages than your average comic.

By The Horns: Dark Earth #7 was a message of support, and By The Horns: Dark Earth #8 is a comic about choice. It is a reminder that you might not be able to choose your circumstances, but you can almost always control how you react to them (I’m not taking credit for those words – that’s the ethos of Justin Scarred’s Quest for Positivity, and I felt it very apt to repeat here given the story we’re talking about). Naso explores within this book how your choices, and especially a dedication to vengeance, can lead you to places you don’t want to be.

Because the comic features four different threads, Muhr and Canon have the task of helping the reader easily differentiate between the locations. While there’s a location update on two of the story thread changes (though you don’t really need the name of the new location to discern that the setting has changed, such is the clarity of the art), the other is met by a very distinct single panel introduction.

By The Horns: Dark Earth #8 really advances the plot in the series, building from the emotional weight of the previous issue with several quick chunks of story. One of my favourite things about this series is the variety that the creative team offer from comic to comic, and they don’t disappoint here.

Story: Markisan Naso Art/Lettering: Jason Muhr Colors: Steve Canon
Story: 10 Art: 10 Overall: 10 Recommendation: Buy

Scout Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review. Alex also purchased a physical copy of all comics referenced within the review.

Purchase: Scout Comics – Zeus Comics

Those Two Geeks Episode 215: The Plastic Power Hour (Which isn’t an hour, but the title sounds better than “The Plastic 63 minutes”).

Posted on by

Alex and Joe talk about Hasbro’s return to plastic packaging.

You can reach Alex and Joe can be found on Twitter respectively @karcossa and @FirstRonin4 if you feel the need to tell them they’re wrong individually, or by email at ItsThose2Geeks@gmail.com.

Music by AlexGrohl from Pixabay

Underrated: Do A Power Bomb!

Posted on by

This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: Do A Power Bomb!

For one reason or another, over the past year or so I’ve found myself becoming a fan of professional wrestling again. It’s been more than 25 years since I last consistently watched wrestling, and yet between three or four people in different groups of friends I have being fans, I could feel the pull of curiosity. Needless to say, after the last year of finding my way back into professional wrestling, when Do A Power Bomb! came around I was curious. I’d missed the first issue or two, and so despite the covers drawing me into the comic, I resisted the urge to read them floppy issues until the trade came out.

So what’s it about? I’ve handily copied the blurb for you below.

Lona Steelrose wants to be a pro wrestler, but she’s living under the shadow of her mother, the best to ever do it. Everything changes when a wrestling-obsessed necromancer asks her to join the grandest pro wrestling tournament of all time, which is also the most dangerous! It’s The Wrestler meets Dragonball Z in a tale where the competitors get more than they ever bargained for!

Daniel Warren Johnson created, wrote and illustrated the story, with colours by Mike Spicer and letters by Rus Wooton. As you can probably tell by the blurb and my intro, the comic is about professional wrestling. It’s actually a unique story with how it blends professional wrestling, while acknowledging the scripted and predetermined outcome of each match, with real world consequences of the sport/performance.

As an aside, it’s interesting how given the athleticism required for professional wrestling, it’s not technically a sport as there’s no real winner and loser other than the stories being told. Performance art might be a better description (or sports entertainment, I suppose, which is why that’s a thing). Needless to say, I take umbrage with those claiming wrestling is fake; it’s not fake (those chops and slams hurt), but it is predetermined. Kinda like a movie. Only difference is, these actors/stuntmen/women only get one take in front of a live audience to tell their story and react quickly when something goes wrong.

It’s what goes wrong that Do A Power Bomb! deals with, and the repercussions of that. Without spoiling anything, this story is far deeper than you’re expecting. Far deeper. A comic about professional wrestling can easily be overlooked, and this is a comic with so much more to offer than giants in spandex. It’s an emotional story with some beautiful artwork that captures the frenetic in ring action. You feel the impacts on the mat through the paper.

And that’s why this is underrated.

Unless the comics industry ceases to exist this week, Underrated will return next week.

Those Two Geeks Episode 214: Failures With Video (and toy talk)

Posted on by

Alex and Joe attempt to record on video for the first time, and it doesn’t quite work out (which is why you’re not seeing us), but it does oddly fall in line with what and who we are. Anyway, expect toy talk, awkward moments where we forget you can’t see us and the realization we need practice hosting on video.

You can reach Alex and Joe can be found on Twitter respectively @karcossa and @FirstRonin4 if you feel the need to tell them they’re wrong individually, or by email at ItsThose2Geeks@gmail.com.

Music by AlexGrohl from Pixabay

Underrated: Eternal Warrior: Sword of the Wild

Posted on by

This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: Eternal Warrior: Sword of the Wild

It should be no secret to you that I am a huge fan of Valiant comics. I’ve also made no secret of my love for the Eternal Warrior. But a lot of that love stems from Book Of Death and Wrath of the Eternal Warrior, and not his first solo series offered since Valiant’s 2012 relaunch, the eponymously titled Eternal Warrior. I first read that series shortly after Book Of Death and didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to, and although I’ve heard mixed opinions on it since, I wanted to give the first four issues in the series another chance (you can find them collected as Sword Of The Wild, hence the full title of this week’s column, and what I’ll be referring to them as going forward).

The back of the trade dressing (apparently) reads;

Soldier. Guardian. Warrior. Legend. Across ten millennia and a thousand battlefields, Gilad Anni-Padda has traversed the darkest, most mysterious corners of history. But the horror and bloodshed of constant warfare has finally taken its toll on the man myth calls the Eternal Warrior…and he has abdicated his duties as the Fist and the Steel of Earth for a quiet life of seclusion. But when a blood vendetta from the distant past suddenly reappears in the modern day, he must decide if he will return to the ways of war…for the child who betrayed him thousands of years ago…

Before rereading Sword of the Wild I realised that I had to look at the book as its own entity, removed from the larger continuity of the Valiant universe as a whole. This realisation came because for me Sword of the Wild doesn’t tie in to the portrayal of the Eternal Warrior we were given in Unity, and subsequently Book Of Death and Wrath of the Eternal Warrior (although the latter two came after Sword of the Wild) nor the general continuity Valiant had built at the time. Once I had taken that mentality with the book,  I sat down, opened the front cover and got started… and was immediately transported to what felt like a reimagination of the 90’s era Eternal Warrior.

I say this because although the book doesn’t lot in as well with the Valiant continuity as other books and series have done, it’s still a really enjoyable read. More so than I initially expected. When you look at this book as a standlone story about an immortal warrior finally having enough of the world’s shit and just wants to live the rest of his long days in peace (or at least a portion of them), and remove any preconcieved notions of how it could or should fit into the other stories featuring Gilad Anni-Padda, then you’ll find that there’s a really compelling four issue arc here.

Just on that maybe lines up better with the pre-relaunch Valiant comics than the Valiant Entertainment era.

I really enjoyed this book – far more than I expected to. So why is it today’s subject? Because I hear very few people talk about this volume with the enthusiasm the character deserves because it doesn’t fit the larger Valiant continuity as well as it could. But as a standalone story? It’s pretty good – that’s why the book is Underrated.

Join us next week when we look at something else that is, for whatever reason, Underrated.

Those Two Geeks Episode 213: Wrestlemania Review with Matthew Klein

Posted on by

Alex and Joe are joined by the author of Crashing, Matthew Klein, to talk about last week’s Wrestlemania. There’s thoughts, the odd cat and strangely no tangents.

Matthew can be found on Twitter @matthewklein316

You can reach Alex and Joe can be found on Twitter respectively @karcossa and @FirstRonin4 if you feel the need to tell them they’re wrong individually, or by email at ItsThose2Geeks@gmail.com.

Music by AlexGrohl from Pixabay

Underrated: Wrath Of The Eternal Warrior

Posted on by

This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: Wrath Of The Eternal Warrior.

wotewJust under a year and a half aog, Valiant Entertainment released a deluxe hardcover edition collecting the entire 14 issue run of Wrath Of The Eternal Warrior along with Eternal Warrior: Awakening #1. Fifteen comics presented in an over-sized hardcover along with 20 odd pages of bonus extras that add a lot for  those interested in the process of the creation of the series, all for $49.99. And yes, I did buy this myself (and happily so) despite having access to the review copies and single issues I had picked up when released.

This series remains one of my all time favourites, so getting a chance to read it all in one spot was something I couldn’t pass up.

But despite this being one of my all time greats, it wasn’t until about the midway point that I fell for the series. Wrath Of The Eternal Warrior didn’t start out as a series that wowed me. The first four issues seemed to struggle with pacing and the art style, especially given the series billing as a follow-up to the explosively exciting Book Of Death miniseries that (spoiler) ended in the Eternal Warrior’s death. It’s that death, and those that follow, that form the crux of the series, but without the first four issues you don’t realize the toll taken on the Eternal Warrior with each death and resurrection cycle. The comics that I felt struggled with pacing quickly became some of the most important ground-setting in modern comics – a lesson that I took to heart, and quickly so.

Comics, like all stories, need time to breath.

It would also be fair to say that the art team of Raul Allen and Patricia Martin were not immediately to my taste. In furtherance to that, it would also be fair to say that my taste quickly changed as the series progressed and the elegance and artistic genius of the husband and wife team gave me a new appreciation of the majesty of sequential art.  There are other artists who contribute to the series, all with a fantastic level of talent; it’s these contributions that give the series the honour of being one of the most visually stunning and diverse pieces of sequential art published by Valiant.

Robert Venditti has written some incredible comics in his time, but one of the finest examples of his work comes in the fourteen issue run of Wrath Of The Eternal Warrior. Taking you on a journey through history,  across continents and beyond death, Venditti weaves an incredibly deep tale that reveals a different layer upon each subsequent reading.

It’s also violent as all hell in places, which should satisfy the need we have for a bit of blood and conflict in our comics, but there’s also a deep emotional story here that cannot – and should not – go ignored. The Eternal Warrior is an ancient being, and his life has not always been sunshine and roses – but he still picks himself up and dusts himself off.

Isn’t there a saying that’s roughly it isn’t how many times we fall, but how many times we pick ourselves up?

Wrath Of The Eternal Warrior is a fantastic series, and I envy those of you who get to read the entire thing in one sitting; the deluxe hardcover is worth picking up for that series alone, which is why I haven’t mentioned Eternal Warrior: Awakening at any point in this week’s column because that’s the cherry on top of the fantastic main course. Mixed metaphors aside, Awakening is another really good comic, and serves as another nice bonus for those who buy the collection.

I’ll  make no secret of my abject love for this series, indeed the fact I own both the individual issues and the deluxe hardcover when I also have access to the review copies should hopefully speak volumes to that love. It’s a love that I genuinely believe you’ll share when you give the series a chance – it’s an underrated gem.

Join us next week when we look at something else that is, for whatever reason, Underrated.

Those Two Geeks Episode 212: Wrestlemania Preview with Matthew Klein

Posted on by

Alex and Joe are joined by the author of Crashing, Matthew Klein, to talk a little about comics, conventions and a whole lot about Wrestlemania. The trio made predictions for the two night extravaganza, so have a listen and find out just how right they were for the first night.

Matthew can be found on Twitter @matthewklein316

You can reach Alex and Joe can be found on Twitter respectively @karcossa and @FirstRonin4 if you feel the need to tell them they’re wrong individually, or by email at ItsThose2Geeks@gmail.com.

Music by AlexGrohl from Pixabay

Underrated: Voracious: Appetite For Destruction

Posted on by

This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: Voracious: Feeding Time.

Markisan Naso, Jason Muhr and Andrei Tabucaru have a new comic coming out in 2021, By The Horns. Because of the fact that these three have created one of my all time favourite series, I’m going to revisit the three volumes over the next couple of months. You can find the first column on Diners, Dinosaurs & Dives here, and the second on Feeding Time here.

Published by Action Lab, Voracious: Appetite for Destruction is written by Markisan Naso and drawn and lettered by Jason Muhr, with the co-creators being joined by colourist Andrei Tabucaru. The series can usually grab your attention with the shortest of descriptions: “time travelling chef makes dinosaur sandwiches.”

It sounds awesome, right? Well, that’s because it is. But there’s a lot more to the series, including dinosaur cops, giant monsters and a strangely relatable dilemma throughout the series.

The first trade introduced the concept of time travel and dinosaur hunting, the second volume introduced us to dinosaur cops and an entirely new world as we learn that our hero wasn’t time travelling but hopping dimensions. The third brings everything together as we add a giant flying monster into the mix as the story hurtles to a remarkable conclusion.

Again, it sounds like it shouldn’t work as a story progression, but the comic never feels as though it’s out of hand; Markisan Naso has an excellent grasp on pacing and weaving the tale through some genuinely heart warming and wrenching scenes that continuously serve to keep the more science fiction aspects of the story feeling as though they’re perfectly natural occurrences.

Whereas the last trade effectively established the time travelling dimension hopping chef Nate as the villain in the story, Naso never quite lets you dislike the character; his action were and remain entirely sympathetic, and his desire to do the right thing even as he acknowledges his mistakes echoes across the page. Of course, the right thing in this case is stopping a significantly enlarged dinosaur as it rampages through Nate’s hometown of Black Fossil, a small desert town with a single cop who just happens to hold a massive dislike for our hero. Familial ties are a massive part of the entire story, but especially volume three as the shit hits the fan in ever increasing ways you see certain characters’ bonds deepen as they try not to fall apart.

I’ve yet to mention the artwork; Jason Muhr and Andrei Tabucaru step up their game from the last volume, and there are some great silent panels as Naso literally lets the pictures tell a thousand words in conversation and character development. Although the high octane scenes are brilliant, it’s the subtle moments when the art shines brightest; the gradual fading of Gus’ memories, the pastel infused flashbacks and those previously mentioned silent conversations help elevate this volume into must read territory.

Voracious is one of the few series where I own both the floppy issues and the trades as, like I said in the last two columns:

“I put my money where my mouth is because Voracious is a wonderful breath of fresh air in an industry that has been choking on relaunches and rehashes; the five issues that make up Feeding Time are some of the highest scored comics that I have reviewed for Graphic Policy.“

If you’re tired of reading about superheroes fighting each other and you want a story to take you across the emotional spectrum without the use of glowing rings then you need look no further. While the comic is about a time traveling, dinosaur hunting chef, it’s also a powerful look into what makes us who we are and how. It’s a story about mistakes and loss, and most importantly coping with those things.

If you want more Voracious, then you can check out the episode of GP Radio where we talked all about the dinosaur sandwiches with both Markisan Naso and Jason Muhr. The new book, by the same team, will be launching February 28th.

Unless the comics industry ceases to exist this week, Underrated will return next week.

« Older Entries Recent Entries »