In Comic Shops Today: Johnny Hiro Vol. 1!
May 20Once in a great big blue moon, you will find a new comic that not only fulfills any expectations you may have had for it, but far surpasses them; it easily vaults over your wildest hopes and becomes something that just amuses and entertains the living shit out of you.
That comic, my friends, is Johnny Hiro.
Johnny is a busboy living in Brooklyn with his beautiful girlfriend, Mayumi. They struggle, but they make ends barely meet, and they love each other very much.
Also, Johnny has adventures. Wild, stupid, crazy fun adventures that spring whole-cloth onto the page from the brain of writer/artist Fred Chao, in some remarkable goulash of chop-socky kung fu comics, cutesy indie relationship books, and just wildly imaginative good comics.
In issue 2, for example, Johnny is chased by crazed ninja busboys, angry at him for stealing a precious lobster so that his boss, Mr. Masago, can serve it for the food editor from Vogue and save his dying restaurant. The heart of the book is a dynamic chase sequence that takes Johnny and his pursuers onto the rooftops of Brooklyn before a stunning one-page splash with follow sound effect that gives your stomach a little jump, like when Luke and Leia swing over the chasm in Star Wars.
Everything about this book just works. Johnny Hiro is an amazing, refreshing, exciting surprise–one of those books that makes you feel so glad you even bother buying and reading comics. I cannot recommend this one highly enough.
Johnny Hiro returns to shelves TODAY in a trade paperback collection–three single issues were published by AdHouse Books, who now combine those three issues with new material to create one single fantastic volume of pure awesomeocity.
Order Johnny Hiro Vol. 1 from Amazon, from a fine online comics retailer such as Heavy Ink, or from the comics emporium of your choice using Diamond order code APR090627.
Now Available: Free Poodoo eBook (Bullshitting About Star Wars)
May 16My second book, Poodoo, is now available for free PDF download.
Poodoo: Bullshitting About Star Wars, 1999-2009
It’s exactly what the subtitle implies–ten years’ worth of my rants and ravings about the Star Wars franchise. Here’s what I wrote a few days ago about it:
Ten years ago next Tuesday, on May 19, 1999, George Lucas unleashed Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace onto an unsuspecting world.
I’m not exaggerating when I say I haven’t been the same since. I’ve spent the past ten years bitching, obsessing, and writing about Star Wars, wherever they’ll have me–and sometimes, when they won’t have me, I build my own goddamned website so that I’ll at least have myself.
To commemorate the horror, the bliss, and the strangeness of the past ten years I’ve spent as a Star Wars fan, I document my journey in Poodoo, a collection of my Star Wars-related writings.
Featuring an introduction by real doctor and college professor Steven P. Millies, Ph.D, Poodoo is about 100 pages of screeds and sundry.
Any links, tweets, or other promotional support would be VERY appreciated. And please let me know what you think! Thanks for checking it out.
P.S. My first book, Unconventional, tells the tale of three geeks spending a fateful weekend at their local bi-mon-sci-fi-con. It’s also available as a free download.
Coming Monday: Poodoo
May 14Ten years ago next Tuesday, on May 19, 1999, George Lucas unleashed Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace onto an unsuspecting world.
I’m not exaggerating when I say I haven’t been the same since. I’ve spent the past ten years bitching, obsessing, and writing about Star Wars, wherever they’ll have me–and sometimes, when they won’t have me, I build my own goddamned website so that I’ll at least have myself.
To commemorate the horror, the bliss, and the strangeness of the past ten years I’ve spent as a Star Wars fan, I document my journey in Poodoo, a collection of my Star Wars-related writings.
Featuring an introduction by real doctor and college professor Steven P. Millies, Ph.D, Poodoo is about 100 pages of screeds and sundry.
Poodoo will be available on Monday, May 18, 2009 as an ABSOLUTELY FREE PDF ebook download. I’ll be tweeting, e-mailing, blogging and what-not about it pretty much all week next week, cause I’m excited.
In fact, I’ve teased once or twice over on Twitter about an upcoming top-secret project I was working on, and this was it. But seriously: Who gives a shit? I’m not Geoff Fucking Johns or James Fucking Cameron; no one really cares what I’m working on, unless it’s cookies, and then suddenly everyone’s Mr. or Ms. Interested, like, “Matt, can we have some cookies?” and all that.
Whether you give a shit or not, I do give a shit, because I’m me, and if I didn’t give a shit about the things I myself choose to do, I would be in store for some serious medication and therapy.
Please stop on by and check it out next week. Thanks!
Star Trek 2009
May 09The new Star Trek flick is not only a great movie. It’s not only a damn fun night at the theater. It’s not only THE summer movie to beat for balls-out action and laughs.
It’s also damn good Star Trek.
That’s what we’ve all been holding our breath about, isn’t it? The geeks, the nerds, the dweebs, the weirdos; the Trekkies and the Trekkers and the Klingon cosplayers; the desperate fanman in his two-sizes-too-small Deep Space Nine tee and the button-down corporate lawyer who slapped silly putty on his ears when he was eight to play Spock for Halloween.
All the previews looked good; all the rumors and spoilers sounded right. It always looked like a well-crafted product of the Hollywood blockbuster machine. But would it be good Trek? Not in a slavish devotion to obscure details, but in spirit, in mindset, in tone?
They did it. They absolutely fucking did it. Star Trek is easily the best time I have had in a movie theater in years; I grinned from start to end and clapped like a fool when it was over. And the afterglow is because on top of everything they got exactly right, they managed to do what seemed impossible for so very long: They reminded us that Star Trek can be great, not by kissing up to an ever-dwindling diehard fanbase or dismissing all that has come before in favor of some “hip,” “edgy” reinterpretation, but by just MAKING GREAT STAR TREK. It’s that simple. They made great Star Trek. It’s great.
(POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHOY)
Stuff We Like This Week: May 1 Edition
May 01In an effort to combat our occasional…okay, okay, near-constant negativity, we give you a regular feature full of nothing but love — Stuff We Like This Week. Appearing every Friday, SWLTW will recap the things that have set our little nerdly hearts aflame within the past seven days.
