Take It Or Leave It – August 22, 2012

This one. It was this one. Antarctic Press has a history of eccentric titles like Time Lincoln, or their variety of steam-punk girl books, both photographic and pin up art. This book, however, was totally shit. Literally. The first page starts with Con Girl taking a shit on a hotel room floor. Apparently this book was written by some fanboy who has never talked to a real girl before and finds poop hilarious, because shitting one’s pants is a recurring “joke” throughout the book, mentioned at least a dozen times throughout. Con Girl also gets drunk on moonshine and has a lesbian make out session while dressed as a Sith lord in just a hood and a bikini. Basically the book is a 12 year old’s wet dream, if that dream were a horribly written, clunkily drawn comic book about an idealized fantasy woman that isn’t real, and that you’d never really meet. As you’ll see below, I’m usually all about books just full of big breasted women, but this has no redeeming qualities at all. The art style is just weird, and the writing is atrocious and disjointed. Don’t waste your money. Go to a con and talk to a girl for a much better experience.

Verdict: Definate Leave It

I’ve only been reading Cavewoman for a few months now, after picking it up as a joke after a friend pointed it out based on the cover. The writing is usually fairly decent, and it’s a book that’s in on the joke and it never tries to be something it’s not. This is a silly book about a cute somewhat naive big breasted jungle girl in a leopard bikini who fights dinosaurs and saber tooth tigers. At the very least, the artwork is always nice to look at. This week though, rather than dinosaurs, the villain is a bunch of gangster kids who blow up the power station for the fence that keeps the dinosaurs out of town. Cavewoman takes a back seat to all the setup for the gang and their motivations, so she isn’t featured much this issue, which makes it probably the weakest one so far. Next issue however is setup for more action and dino-fighting. Unless you really like good girl art (and there isn’t much this time), skip this one and get the next one.

Verdict: Most Likely Leave It

Verdict: Take It, or wait for the trade

I don’t think I’ve seen The Rocketeer since it came out. I just remember I liked it at the time and that Jennifer Connelly was in it. But since I read today there is talks of a reboot, and I love other retro stuff in the same vain, like The Iron Giant, I thought I’d try this. I don’t think I got the full effect, as it seems there’s a lot stuff that went over my head that having seen the movie more recently would have fixed. I’m sure there is a bunch of character establishment I’m missing that would be more satisfying if I already knew it from the movie, but it still gets by good enough on its own. It was still pretty good overall, as it is a Mark Waid book. It really has that whole 1940’s Indiana Jones vibe down pretty well, what with the way characters talk and the retro art style. If you like that kind of pulp noir, give this a go. You don’t have to be a fan of the movie, but it wouldn’t hurt your experience either. I certainly now want to go back and rewatch the movie, so it at least got that part going for it if that was the intention to respark interest in the series.

Verdict: Take It