TV I Saw in 2005:
Part two of my irregular (and irrelevant) "Best of 2005" series here on the blog. I continued to co-run The Fourth Rail, one of the biggest comic review sites, throughout 2005, and one of the many, many reasons that I retired was that I realized that I was more interested in what was on TV than what was in comics, as a majority rule. It seemed like some of the more unusual and original projects were breaking through and surviving in a way that they usually don't in any entertainment medium, with the success of weird genre TV like Lost being a prime example.

So, below, my list of my top five shows that were on TV this year. Coming... well, later, is my top five TV DVD sets for the year and then the rest, stuff I rented or bought. I bought a lot more TV on DVD than I did movies on DVD.

My Top Five TV Shows:
Once again... I'm not judging on objective quality, but which TV I watched this year that I really enjoyed the most. There's one quality in common with all of them, and that's the ability to get better as they go along. There wasn't one new show this year that makes it to my top five list, but there are three from last year and two that were on their third and fourth seasons, respectively, and not one of them fell prey to the common season drift of quality.

1. Arrested Development (FOX) - If I had to choose only one show to watch, this would be it. Year three, and the show still gets funnier, more complex and more bizarre in its plots and character arcs. Tobias with hair implants that could kill him? Mr. F, and all that goes with it? George Bluth under house arrest, and using a surrogate to chime in at family meetings? This show is absolutely brilliant comedy, and quite possibly the funniest show ever put on the air. NBC generally rules the comedy roost, with Seinfeld, Cheers, Newsradio, and Scrubs all ranking in my favorites, but Arrested Development is my favorite of all time. Here's hoping Showtime picks it up.

2. The Shield (F/X) - I have to admit, I was worried. Glenn Close sounded suspiciously like stunt-casting. But she was amazing. She deserves an Emmy for best supporting actress. Her character was tough, smart, a perfect foil and ally for Vic Mackie by turns. And the story of Vic and the strike team continues to deepen, with Shane coming off as the bad guy for much of the early part of the season and the team coming back together after their disastrous explosion at the end of season three. That's not even mentioning Anthony Anderson in an Emmy-worthy role as Antwone Miller, probably the scariest and smartest bad guy the show has offered up yet. The Shield is a cop drama, but it's a cop drama that is so different from all the other cop shows out there that it doesn't deserve to be lumped in with them. Even the best of them, like Homicide or NYPD Blue (in its early years), can't hold a candle to The Shield.

3. Lost (ABC) - Complex mythology, plenty of mysteries and a terrific ensemble cast. That alone would make Lost a great show. But it's the writing that elevates the show beyond genre and into the realm of just plain great drama. The X-Files spectre looms above this show, with the worrying "can they possibly answer all the questions and mysteries in a satisfying way?" The great thing is, I'm so wrapped up in the characters and their week-to-week stories, that I ultimately don't even care if they drop the ball a little on this at the end. And season two, with the introduction of the hatch, the tailies and more of The Others, picks up nicely from where season one left off and continues to roll along.

4. Veronica Mars (UPN) - This is how great TV has been this season... this is the kind of show that could easily have been my number one choice, but I don't have a spot for it until number four. Veronica Mars turns for me on the smart father-daughter dynamic of Kristen Bell and Enrico Colantoni, but the key to making the show work in season two was to come up with a compelling central mystery equal to that of "Who killed Lily Kane?" from season one. And the writers managed it, with a multiple path story involving a crashed bus, the fallout of last year's Kane murder and the confrontation on the bridge that weaves in and out nicely, with plenty of room for further revelations. There were some missteps, like the introduction of bitchy girlfriend Jackie, and damn did I miss Wallace for the eternity it seemed like he was gone, but mostly, Veronica Mars is as good as it was during the first season.

5. Entourage (HBO) - While the first short season of Entourage provided some great laughs and memorable moments, season two is where the show clicked and became a favorite. The long-running Aquaman story was great geek candy, but the meat of the show, as always, was the interactions of four lifelong friends surrounded by shocking numbers of hot girls. The Mandy Moore issue, the use of Malcolm McDowell as Ari's boss, James Cameron in a great guest acting role, the show had great standalone episodes and a great plot throughline as well. And while every actor on the show is great, it's Kevin Dillon in particular who steals the show, with a blend of pathetic has-been and prideful star that is just dead-on perfect.

Google Love:
I've long been a fan of Google. The image search feature is just great, their searches are pretty good at finding what I'm looking for and the little search toolbar thing they had for Internet Explorer (before I switched over to Firefox, which has one built in) was a godsend.

Now they've told the Bush Administration to go and stick their fishing subpoena looking for private search information where it belongs, and I love them all the more. Fight the power, Google.

Huh. That's just an odd sentence.

Weekly Comics to Come - January 25, 2006:

ALREADY READ:
A Trip To Rundberg Gn (Nate Southard and Shawn Richter's zombie graphic novel makes its way to comics shops after showing up briefly at Wizard World Texas)
Bone Vol 3 Eyes Of The Storm Color Edition (I still haven't read volume two, but I'm still buying these color Bone editions because I want the whole saga in color)
Daredevil #81 (Bendis always has had a problem with endings. It's not a bad ending, but it's not what the series really needed, which was a great ending)
Exiles #76 (The World Tour continues to be a lot of old school style fun)
Godland #7 (Good timing on Image's part, releasing the trade and the newest issue on the same day so folks can catch up)
Godland Vol 1 Hello Cosmic Tp (This remains one of my favorite book, just over-the-top cosmic superhero action with a great sense of humor)
Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #2 (Probably the best Spider-Man title running at the moment)
Thing #3 (Old school fun)

HAVEN'T READ:
BPRD The Black Flame #6 (Very curious to see how this finally concludes)
Fallen Angel #2 (I miss the old artwork, and wasn't as taken with the new first issue as everybody else, but I'll hang in there out of memory of how much I loved the original series, if nothing else)
JLA Classified #16 (I think this finally starts the Gail Simone/Jose Luis-Garcia Lopez story)
Lady And The Tramp Cinemanga (Buying this for my daughter, who likes books and really likes Lady and the Tramp)
Local #3
Next Wave #1 (Based on Ellis's take on Captain Marvel and the general disdain for superheroes, I expect to hate this... but I'd be happy to be wrong)
Oversight Collected Short Stories 1990-2005 Tp (Phil Hester is a vastly underrated writer, and this is a collection of his stuff)
Polly & The Pirates #3
Previews Vol XVI #2
Sexy Chix Tp (All-female anthology from Dark Horse... I'll love it if it can live up to Autobiographix)
Spider-Man Black Cat Evil That Men Do #6 (Holy crap, it's actually finished. I never thought the day would come. And thank goodness, because more than anything else, what superhero comics need right now are more rape stories)
Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic #1 (With the Star Wars movies done, I think it's possible all the Star Wars tie-in stories will actually get better... which doesn't speak highly of the movies)
Surrogates #4 (The speculative sci-fi story closes in on its conclusion, and I'm dying to see where it goes)
Truth Serum Vol 1 Tp (Weird indy superhero book that I missed the first time, but I'm curious to check out the trade)
Usagi Yojimbo #90
Warren Ellis Black Gas #1 (Ellis writes zombies for Avatar... probably going to be B-movie at best, but it might be fun)
X-men Deadly Genesis #3 (More than a little pissed by Brubaker offing a perfectly good character for a lameass shock value conclusion in the last issue, and pretty sure I'm gonna wind up hating all the "everything you know is wrong" aspects of this story... but I'll check out this issue to see if I change my mind on that score)

An Open Letter to Showtime:
It seems clear that the rumors of Showtime trying to pick up Arrested Development are pretty solid. In fact, the latest I've heard out of EW is that they're offering a two-season pickup, as opposed to ABC's one-season offer. (ABC has Lost now, but I haven't ever really forgiven them for offing Cupid and Karen Sisco so early, so I'd really rather the show go away from networks).

The day that Showtime announces they've signed Arrested Development is the day I call my cable company and order Showtime. I'm already a fan of Weeds and The L Word by way of DVD and friends' taped episodes, all it'll take to push me into a subscription is picking up my favorite comedy on the air (and quite possibly my favorite comedy ever).

I love HBO because they've got Curb, Deadwood, Entourage, Sopranos, etc. But if Showtime picks up Arrested Development, it will immediately become my favorite pay cable network.

Movies I Saw in 2005:
It's late January, so probably too late really to be compiling "Best Of" lists, but I felt like doing a sort of "Best Of" retrospective of some of my entertainment this year and really, it's my blog and who's gonna stop me?

First up, I went through my Netflix queue and my Quicken to see what movies I'd watched on DVD and in theatres this year. There might be some others I re-watched from my collection and some that I got as gifts, but this is a pretty good indication of what movies I watched this year. So I hope you're all good and bored at work, because that's about the level of distraction I can offer here. Y'all will quickly notice that I have very "pop" tastes in what I pay to see in theatres. I generally want to see loud, over-the-top blockbusters, and prefer to watch the actual films with dialogue, plot, etc. in my home on DVD where I'll enjoy them more.

My Top Five (Counting Theatres and DVD):
I should preface by saying I'm not judging on objective quality, but which movies I saw for the first time this year that I really enjoyed the most.

1. Crash - Great flick. I've been a fan of Paul Haggis since his TV show "EZ Streets," and the buzz on this one, his writer-director debut, was absolutely right. Everyone in the cast was great, the dialogue is terrific, the story weaves nicely... it's a little heavy-handed at times, but not so much as to be annoying. The only reason I didn't buy it is because I don't know how much I'd actually re-watch something this serious, I tend to go more for popcorn style flicks when re-watching.

2. Million Dollar Baby - Love when Clint Eastwood does the actor-director thing. This is a terrific movie, although again, I won't buy it because I can't imagine re-watching it that often.

3. Serenity - Everything I'd hoped for, and probably my favorite movie that I saw in the theatre this year. Gutsy choices by Joss Whedon and a great swansong for a great show. In an ideal world, we'd all be watching season three or four of Firefly right now, as it was a setting and cast that had plenty of room for the long-term, but actually getting a major motion picture coda for the series is more than any fan really could have wished for. The cinderella story of the year, and hopefully Arrested Development will be the cinderella story of next year, rescued from cancellation by ABC or Showtime.

4. Closer - Fantastic. Great dialogue, great actors, a real character piece with a dark streak to it.

5. Garden State - Loved this movie, and have since watched it when it was on HBO and loved it again. Good cast, nice quiet vibe and some real humor. I haven't bought it yet, but I can see buying it at some point.

In Theatres:
Batman Begins - Overrated. Dull. Sorry, folks, I can't get on board the bandwagon with this one. In retrospect, the flaws in Burton's Batman are more than evident, but it's a better movie than this one.

Chronicles of Narnia - Pretty great high fantasy, nice spectacle, very watchable. It's not Lord of the Rings, but it's probably the next best thing.

Fantastic Four - Better than Batman Begins, at least in terms of capturing the spirit of the comics. Oh, at least half the cast is mediocre, the script is laughable, and the music is distracting and vapid... but the action sequences are solid, Michael Chiklis shined as The Thing and Chris Evans nailed the Human Torch part. Plus, it was fun, something lacking in both superhero movies and superhero comics a lot these days.

King Kong - Saw this one twice, once with friends and again with family. Both times, the people who went with me were underwhelmed. I actually quite liked it. It's over-indulgent in its length, and definitely flawed, but the high points won me over. Naomi Watts did incredible work, Andy Serkis and the CGI team deserve a lot of credit for making Kong a character instead of a special effect and the pulp action and wonder quotient was very high.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith - This one I liked in the theatre and when I recently re-watched it on DVD. Saw it with my wife on our anniversary. Doug Liman is a director I really like (Bourne Identity and Go are two of my favorite re-watchable DVD flicks), I like Brad Pitt (ever since Snatch, Fight Club and Ocean's 11, I've decided he's my kind of pretty-boy actor, the kind who can actually act), love Angelina Jolie (dislike most of her movies, but when she's in the right one, I like her a lot, and she's super-hot) and I thought there was some fun, goofy action in this one.

Sin City (twice, once at a free screening and once at the Paramount theatre premiere) - I really enjoyed this both times, although when I got a chance to revisit it on DVD recently, I started to see some of the cheesiness that others picked up on in early viewings. That might be because the luster is off Frank Miller's comically over-the-top noir stylings after seeing it applied to the wretched All-Star Batman and Robin. Still glad to have the DVD, though, and Rodriguez's 10-minute cooking school had me craving breakfast tacos, even though it's a food I don't like all that much.

Star Wars Episode III - Good lord. The buzz, from critics and fanboys alike, was that this was the film, the one that actually lived up to the original trilogy in some respects. And it was just godawful, just like the other two prequels. The ancillary stuff derived from the ideas in these movies, from Star Wars Battlefront to Gentle Giant's Bust-Ups to Tartakovsky's Clone Wars cartoons to the Ostrander/Duursema comics, ranges from good to great, but the source material, the movies, are just dreck. George Lucas, you are dead to me.

War of the Worlds - I actually liked this one in the theatre, but quickly realized that I have no real desire to ever see it again. So call it three stars at best, more like two and a half. If I want to watch a Cruise/Spielberg sci-fi movie, I'll turn to the very watchable action flick Minority Report.

DVDs I bought:
Beverly Hills Cop - Finally added this bit of '80s action-comedy to my shelf. It holds up pretty well, still funny and well-done.

Get Shorty - Waited for the special edition that I knew would hit eventually, got it and it turns out that the only feature I really care about is the movie anyway. Ah, well. Lots of fun, a good adaptation of Elmore Leonard, one of my favorite re-watchable flicks. Which only makes the crapulence that was Be Cool all the more disappointing.

Heat - I love this one more every time I watch it. Great crime flick by Michael Mann, and an incredible cast

Incredibles - Great Pixar flick, great superhero flick. Although surprisingly, I haven't re-watched this one as much as Finding Nemo, Toy Story or Monsters Inc, possibly because my daughter is too young to really be a fan of this one. She does love Iron Giant, also by Brad Bird, though, so I suspect when she gets a little older she'll love it

DVDs I rented:
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy - Love Will Ferrell, still waiting for him to get the right movie that really captures everything he's capable of. But this one had some really fun stuff, and a great cast, including Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and a memorable turn from Vince Vaughn. Won't make my comedy best of lists, but if it was on cable, I'd probably watch it.

The Aviator - Solid movie from Martin Scorsese, but I've realized two things: 1) I just don't care about Leonardo Di Caprio, no matter what the role and 2) I really just want to see Scorsese's gangster movies

Battle Royale - I was actually expecting something more outrageous and funny given what I've heard, but the movie is a relatively serious horror flick. I enjoyed it.

Be Cool - Just awful. Mind-bendingly bad. I love Get Shorty, I enjoyed the book of Be Cool, how did this all go so very wrong?

Blade: Trinity - Not as bad as I'd heard, but certainly not good. Their version of Dracula was laughably bad (whoever designed that costume should be staked) and most of the cast were obviously phoning it in, but there were some fun action moments. I'd put it on par with Blade 2... but then again, I didn't really like Blade 2.

The Center of the World - Moody little character piece with Peter Saarsgard and Molly Parker (of Deadwood) that was a little slow, but had some memorable moments and a nice guest turn from Carla Gugino. Very "indy."

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Good. Not great, but good. Nice production values, and of course Burton gives it a quirky look and feel and Depp is great... but I can't really see watching it again, unlike Big Fish, which is probably my favorite Burton movie ever.

The Comedians of Comedy: The Movie - Dark, funny look at what comedians do when they're not making people laugh on stage. Watched this and the TV series version of it, and both are excellent and fun.

Constantine - Mostly what I expected, dull even when it's trying to be action-packed, not at all true to the comic (that ending with the chewing gum is a complete betrayal) and Keanu Reeves was just not the right guy for the role. Not wretched, but not really good either.

Criminal - Good, quiet movie about a con man and his protege starring John C. Reilly, who is always great, Maggie Gyllenhall (ditto) and Diego Luna (whose work I don't know).

Donnie Darko: Director's Cut - Finally saw this one, and really liked it. It's deliberately confusing, but not so hard to follow that I couldn't enjoy it, and I really liked the cast, especially Jake Gyllenhall, Mary McDonnell and Jena Malone.

Dude, Where's My Car? - This was surprisingly funny. Rented on the strength of some positive word-of-mouth from friends and the strength of Harold and Kumar. The lead actors are weak, and as a result it's not as strong as Harold and Kumar, but it was still funny and worth watching.

Family Guy Presents: Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story - Fun, bizarre, not as good as the current season of Family Guy. Have not yet bought it, but I own all the other Family Guy DVDs, so it's probably just a matter of time (and bargain pricing).

Green Day: Bullet in a Bible - Great concert film, makes me really sad I missed them in San Antonio.

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle - So much funnier than I expected, and so completely bizarre. Neil Patrick Harris has an amazingly funny cameo, the two leads are great, Anthony Anderson has a memorable guest turn... I'm going to add this to my Amazon Wish List right now.

Infernal Affairs - Really great, tense foreign movie about a cop undercover in the mob and a mobster undercover with the cops, both trying to ferret out the traitor in their home organizations. Due to be remade in the States, as I understand it, and will probably be screwed up. See the original.

I, Robot - More fun than I expected, a solid sci-fi actioner probably just a notch or two below Minority Report in my estimation.

The Jerk - Hadn't watched this one in ages, but is indeed Steve Martin bringing the funny, as remembered. Very stuck in its '70s period, but still a very funny movie.

Kill Bill Vols. 1 & 2 - Decided to revisit these while waiting for that rumored special edition. Enjoyed them both again.

Layer Cake - I found this convoluted and unsatisfying in a lot of ways, after hearing so much good about it. Not a bad movie, just kind of OK.

National Lampoon's Van Wilder - I really like Ryan Reynolds, and coming off of his memorable guest turn in Harold and Kumar, I decided to finally give this a rent, since people said it was funny, in the spirit of good National Lampoon movies like Animal House and Vacation. Nope. Predictable, mostly not funny... I actually watched it all the way through, but I'm not sure that was the right call.

Ocean's Twelve - A notable drop in quality from Ocean's 11, but I still really dig this flick. If there's an edition put out with some extras, I'll definitely buy it.

Reefer Madness: The Musical - Got about 10 minutes in when I realized that despite how much I like Kristen Bell, I'm generally not a huge fan of campy musicals.

Scrooged - My holiday tradition is to rent this and watch it every year, along with Elf (which I own). If they ever do a special edition or something with extras, I'll buy it.

Secretary - Twisted and engaging flick about S&M with Maggie Gyllenhall (she was on The Daily Show around this time, and I got on a Maggie Gyllenhall kick, as you can see by the follow up of Criminal and Donnie Darko) and James Spader.

Shaolin Soccer - After seeing Kung-Fu Hustle, I had to see Shaolin Soccer. Hustle is the better movie, but this one is a lot of fun in the same spirit.

Sideways - Found it to be watchable, but not as highly rated as everybody said it was. Still love Paul Giamatti, though.

Sky High - A little too goofy for me, and after hearing a lot of folks at the comic shop tell me how good it was, my expectations were maybe a little too high. Still kind of fun, but too cheesy and too Disney to make it to my "buy it" list.

Sneakers - The tech stuff seemed obsolete and silly, and the ensemble didn't come together as I'd hoped it would. I found this to be disappointing and not what I was looking for. Watchable, but not really that memorable.

Team America: World Police - Not as funny as everyone said, a letdown after how much I loved South Park... but there were indeed some very funny parts, and these guys do outrageous musical comedy better than anyone

Troy - Better than I'd heard, but too long and compares badly to the more scholarly take of Age of Bronze. Still, with Rome on the horizon and a recommendation from my friend Dave, I was in the right mood, and it worked alright.

Hey Visa:
Actually, this goes for all customer service. I know that you're frustrated that you're not allowed to as much easy telemarketing anymore. The no-call lists and such have really put a krimp in calling your customers and getting them to sign up for services that cost them more money that they probably don't need.

But when I call your customer service hotline to deal with an issue, your customer service person should not then turn around and try to sell me something after dealing with the issue. It's annoying.

That is all.

Weekly Comics to Come - January 18, 2006:

ALREADY READ:
Ex Machina #17 (Starting to wish this one was a bit more compressed in terms of storytelling, but I always enjoy it when I read it)
Testament #2 (Might be a bit too trippy for my tastes... but still intrigued)

HAVEN'T READ:
7 Days To Fame #2 (Liked the first issue... seemed like a bit of wait for this second one)
All Star Superman #2 (First issue was better than All-Star Batman, but overall, the All-Star line is still a disappointment given the caliber of talent)
Birds Of Prey #90
Conan #24
Girls #9
Green Lantern #7 (Love Simone Bianchi's art... didn't think it worked on Green Lantern, and last issue bored me)
Infinite Crisis #4 (Yeah, yeah, I'm reading it... but only because my job allows me to do so for free)
Little Star #6
Manhunter #18
Noble Causes #16
Planetary #24
PS 238 #14
Runaways #12
Sentinel Squad One #1 (John Layman writes, so I'll read... though my interest in the X-Universe is about zero right now)
Sgt Rock The Prophecy #1 (Not quite sure if I'll read this... it's in First Look, and I haven't read it yet, which isn't a good sign of interest)
Star Wars Republic #82
Transformers Infiltration #1
Walking Dead #25
Warren Ellis Apparat Vol 1 TP (It's late, but I'm glad it's finally here)

TV Thoughts:
I know I haven't been posting here a whole lot... I'll try to get better.

At any rate, this post is mostly going to be about TV, because, well, I've been watching plenty of TV and DVD lately. And TV is about to get really, really good again. Battlestar Galactica started up on Friday, Scrubs is running two eps every Tuesday, The Shield started last night and Lost returned tonight... and not one of them has disappointed me.

Battlestar Galactica: The cliffhanger on episode 2.10 was just evil, leaving us to wait months to see the resolution of a gigantic epic action sequence. The resolution did seem to hit detente a little bit easier than I expected, with Adama and Cain actually sitting in a room together shortly after almost starting a deadly shooting war... but the tension that remained was nice. One of the really nice things about Galactica returning was that the podcasts by executive producer Ronald D. Moore also returned. This is the coolest thing in the world for a commentary junkie like myself, getting "DVD" commentary that I can listen to in my car on my iPod, and Moore's commentaries are always entertaining and full of intelligence that indicates how much thought goes into the writing on the show.

Lost: Which is also going on with the Lost podcasts. I'd love it if we got these for Arrested Development (sort of irrelevant now, I guess), The Shield, Veronica Mars, hell most of the shows I watch. Lost is kicking much ass in season two, in my opinion. The introduction of the Tailies, the revelations about the bunker, the building creep factor of the Others, not to mention further developments between already-existing characters, it's fantastic. Lost has a quality of writing and characterization that puts it notches above what you usually get with genre stuff. And the cast is amazing as well.

Scrubs: It's no Arrested Development, but Scrubs is innovative on its own terms, and certainly deserves more of a profile than it has. This is easily NBC's best show running at the moment, and probably their best comedy since Seinfeld ended. The character arcs move forward and develop, but the creators have not let themselves get caught up in the trap of many "Must See" sitcoms of thinking their dramas first. The show is always laugh out loud funny, and the "fantasy" element allows for some great pop culture riffing and outrageous humor. The "kung fu fighting" sequence with surgeons Turk and Todd in a recent episode was a definite highlight. I've just come off watching the Scrubs Season Two DVD set, and I'm struck by how solid this show has been, and continues to be.

The Shield: Best for last. If you're super-sensitive about spoilers (like, you don't even want to know who the new characters are) and haven't watched the first ep of season five, steer clear of this for now. The Shield has really never faltered for me, aside from what I thought were stylistic weaknesses in the David Mamet episode. Last season, with an Emmy-worthy turn by Glenn Close, was probably as good as the show has ever been. This season starts out strong as well. Tons of potential plots and subplots put into motion. A storyline which promises to pay off a subplot from all the way back in the first season. A fantastic new adversary in the cheerful, intelligent and clearly dangerous (to Vic Mackie) IAD detective played by Forest Whitaker. Interesting new character in Tina, Julian's new partner. A hilarious choice for new captain. Racial tensions making for a tough job on the street. And holy shit, I did not see Danni's new development coming!

I've heard that this is 22 episodes, which worries me a little (I'm a big proponent of the limited 13-ep seasons, as I think it helps avoid padding), but I've also heard that this might be the last season. I've gotta say, I'd be OK with that, because I'd rather the show go out on top, and if they can deliver the equivalent of almost two seasons worth of episodes with this level of quality, that's definitely going out on top. If not for my love of Arrested Development, I'd say this was the best show on TV.

Next week, guilty pleasure and action fest 24 starts up... which means I'm just wondering when we'll see new episodes of Arrested Development, Veronica Mars, Celebrity Poker Showdown and the HBO shows. I'm especially curious about when we'll get more Entourage, but it'll probably be a longer wait than I'll like.

Weekly Comics to Come - January 11, 2006:

ALREADY READ:
Amazing Joy Buzzards Vol 2 #4 (Jim Mahfood, Dave Crosland and possibly the funniest AJB story yet with "Mars Needs Kittens" So far, my favorite read of stuff coming out next week... and that includes Fables)
Daughters Of The Dragon #1 (Quirky, fun, nice art... except for the incongruous dark tone of the last four pages, I thought this was a great first issue. With this and Jonah Hex, Palmiotti and Gray are moving up my "must read" list again)
DMZ #3 (First arc seems a bit abrupt, but the general vibe of the book is still one I really like, and the art is terrific)
Exiles #75 (Recently read the last year or so of this book, and Bedard is doing great stuff with the characters, reminding me why I liked the book in the first place. This starts the tour of the 2099 universe. Old school Marvel fun with a touch of the fun "failures" of the '80s and '90s like the New Universe and 2099)
Fables #45 (Concludes the Arabian Fables story, and is, as always, great. One of the top five series being produced in comics today)
She-Hulk 2 #4 (Also old school Marvel fun, with a flashback that explores Geoff Johns's kinda lame "Search for She-Hulk" story and makes it fit into Slott's lighter toned She-Hulk series. The Avenger brought back at the end is not the one I'd hoped, but it's still a good one)
X-men The 198 #1 (Well-written, but I think it points up a lot of the problems with only having 198 mutants. Morrison's direction for these books seemed so much more interesting and full of potential)

HAVEN'T READ:
Star Wars Republic #81 (Huh. I thought #80 was the last issue. At any rate, Dark Horse's Star Wars comics have been really good of late)
Super Bad James Dynomite #1 ('70s funk parody from the Wayans Brothers. Looks fun)
Ultimate X-men #66 (I could be wrong, but I think this is Robert Kirkman's first issue)
Vampirella Revelations #2 (I know, I'm shocked too, but I really enjoyed #0 and #1, so I want to see what happens next)

The New Year:
Typically, this is the time of year when folks make resolutions. My resolution this year is not to make any resolutions out loud. I have a number of things that are always on my mental "to do" list including cut down on drinking Cokes (not bloody likely), lose weight, get more exercise, find a better job, be more understanding and less angry in general, budget my time more effectively, etc. etc.

But there's only one resolution that I'm actually following through on, and that's because I actually went ahead and did it. I resolved that this would be the year to stop putting so much time into comics reviewing, step back and try to appreciate the medium as more of a fan and less of a pundit for a while. I've never lost my enthusiasm for comics, but the constant disappointments and analytical mindset required to regularly review comics means that I couldn't just enjoy comics on a simple level, and now I'll be able to do that.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, my semi-retirement column is here.

This should theoretically mean I'll have more time to write and update this blog, but that's sort of not the trade-off I'm going for. I'm going for more time to spend with the family, more time to waste on videogames and reading comics and watching TV. But I'll still be endeavoring to update weekly at least, and more than once a week in general.

And while I'm posting, a random LOST thought. LOST starts up again tonight, and I am loving the second season. Quite possibly even more than the first. My initial worry that these guys might "pull an X-Files" hasn't lessened, and comments made on podcasts and interviews that suggest that they may not resolve what the numbers mean leads me to believe that the resolution of the whole thing may be unsatisfying.

However... the quality of writing on LOST is so good that I just don't really care. If we never get resolution to the over-arcing plots, if some of the mysteries are left unsolved, I probably will be fine with that if the character arcs resolve. Because LOST goes beyond what we're used to seeing in "genre" writing, and I think that's why it has keyed into the mass consciousness so much more than cult hits like X-Files, Babylon 5, Buffy, etc. LOST is one of the best-written shows on TV, and it has a fantastic ensemble cast. The moment-to-moment stuff is as exciting and interesting as the suspense and supernatural elements, and that's the key.

I know some folks have been griping about Ana Lucia. And I don't get it. It seems like the same people who demand to know all the answers, now, and insist that the show is screwed up somehow if they're not giving it to us. Ana Lucia has her reasons for her personality and her actions, and that's one argument, but I thought from the start that she was a fascinating character. She's mean, she's violent, she's undeniably dangerous... she's a great character. She's just not someone you'd want to invite over for dinner. I think a lot of people want her killed off because they don't like her. I think that's missing the point. Characters don't have to be sympathetic, they don't have to be someone you like. In my mind, they should be either sympathetic, relatable (not always the same thing) or interesting. To my mind, Ana Lucia started out as interesting, became more relatable when we saw what she went through in the first 48 days and became sympathetic when we saw her flashback.

Seems to me like writing off Ana Lucia this early would be akin to writing off Sawyer as the villain of the piece based on the first few episodes of the first season. And as all LOST fans know by now, the first impression is rarely the whole picture.

Blog Template Update for December
This is the latest monthly update to the left column of the blog, listing my Favorite Comics of the Month, which is my counterpart to Current Favorite TV series, as well as my five favorite first issues of the month and my ten favorite graphic novel reads of the month.

A couple things of note in how I organize these things, for those who care. These listings are alphabetical, not by rank of how much I liked them in comparison. My criteria for what makes the list is when I read them, not necessarily when they were published. And thirdly, I decided to change thing from "Favorite Monthly Series" and "Favorite First Issues" to "Favorite Comics" so that I'm recommending twenty things that I read in the month instead of 10 ongoing series and 5 first issues. It's less useful as a gauge of my overall tastes, but more useful as a "must-read" for the month. Oh, and graphic novels won't be listed in Favorite Comics... that's strictly for issues.

Finally, the updates are for the month of December... January just barely started. So all my favorites will be anywhere from a week to a full month old, but these are meant to be sort of "standing" preferences anyway. I cheated in a few cases, notably TV, as I put Entourage on given that I've been watching reruns each week, despite there not being any new episodes. January will see no need to cheat again, as three of my favorite shows (Battlestar Galactica, The Shield and 24) all make their return in that month.

Also, on the links end of things, I've taken away links to some of the comics stuff (they might return eventually, but not at the moment) and added in links to some of the stuff on my regular online reading list, mostly in the form of RSS feeds. I'm still coding some of those links, so for this month it's Non-RSS links and RSS feeds of comics and art blogs that I read.

Weekly Comics to Come - January 5, 2006:

ALREADY READ:
Batman And The Monster Men #3 (Matt Wagner's re-invention of an early Batman story is probably the best Batman story I've read in several years)
Exterminators #1 (Deeply, deeply fucked up story of exterminators with interesting character stuff and gorgeous art from Tony Moore. I'm not sure how sustainable the whole thing is, but it's an interesting first issue)
Jonah Hex #3 (Great single-issue storytelling from Palmiotti & Gray, true to the '70s Jonah Hex stuff but with a modern feel and terrific art by Luke Ross - This book is better than expected, one of DC's best new books)
Team Zero #2 (Solid if formulaic World War II actioner from Chuck Dixon and Doug Mahnke)

HAVEN'T READ:
Down #3 (The change from Tony Harris to Cully Hamner in issue two robbed me of a lot of my initial enthusiasm, but I'm still interested in seeing how it ends)
Essential Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe Vol. 1 Tp (Still haven't decided whether or not I'm picking this up, but I'm glad Marvel is reprinting it at any rate)
Godland #6
Gotham Central #39
Marlene #1 (One-shot mystery by Peter Snejbjerg. Curious to see how his writing is, because I know his art is great)
Marvel Team-up #16 (Part two of the "Legion of Losers" story. This is still not up to Kirkman's standards on Invincible or Walking Dead, but it's become more enjoyable)
Marvel Zombies #2 (First issue was twisted fun. Another one I don't know how it'll sustain itself for the entire length of the series, but I'm curious to find out)
Sable & Fortune #1 (Two of my favorite C-list Marvel characters. I'm surprised to even see this published, but interested to see it)
Seven Soldiers Frankenstein #2
Y The Last Man #41

NYC 2123:
I'm an old school guy at heart, and I still like to hold a book in my hands rather than read it digitally. But one of my absolute favorite comics right now doesn't exist in paper form. It's called NYC2123, and it's probably the best cyberpunk comic ever done. Issue four just came out, and reveals that the previous three seemingly self-contained stories are in fact all lead-ins to a larger, and very interesting, story arc, with two more issues left to wrap up.

NYC 2123 is totally free. You can read it on the web or download it for PSP, and it reads great on PSP. In fact, if Marvel, DC or one of the other big companies was to wise up and try online distribution of some of their comics, they could do worse than going to these guys, handing them a boatload of cash, and getting them to convert some comics into panel-to-panel PSP versions. I'm kind of hoping for a collected print version when all is said and done, which I'll happily shell out cash for, but for right now I'm really enjoying having the books to read on my PSP.

Definitely check NYC 2123 out. Like I said, it's totally free, and it is a fantastic read.

Happy Holidays:
Hope everyone is having a safe, relaxing, fun (or at least one of the three) holiday. And if you're not celebrating Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, etc., then I hope y'all are having a good weekend.

More from me next year.

Weekly Comics to Come - December 21, 2005:
Changing this up a little bit. If the book I'm mentioning is an issue of an ongoing series and I don't have anything new to offer, I'll just tag it onto the list as an indication that I'm reading and enjoying it, but don't have anything more specific than that to say.

ALREADY READ:
Light Brigade Tp (World War II supernatural thriller with gorgeous art by Peter Snejbjerg)
Runaways #11 (Some very fun moments in this one, including a great bluff by Chase)
Testament #1 (Very intriguing first issue, terrific art by Liam Sharp)

HAVEN'T READ:
Birds Of Prey #89
Conan #23 (New storyline, following in the footsteps of "Tower of the Elephant")
Dracula Vs King Arthur #3
Girls #8
Image First Tp (Cheapie trade with first issues of some of Image's books, ala the Vertigo First Offenses trades)
Intimidators #1 ('60s superhero hooks up with Authority-esque team. Hilarity and mayhem ensues. Writing by Ninety Candles' Neil Kleid)
Manhunter #17 (After reading the trade, I read the back issues after the trade and now I'm caught up and now I'm kind of digging this book)
Owly Vol 3 Flying Lessons Tp (Yay! More Owly! What I'm looking forward to most this week)
Pvp #21
Revisionary #2 (First issue was pretty good, curious to see where it goes from here)
Shotgun Wedding #1 (Marc Bryant's long-delayed Speakeasy book about Romeo & Juliet set as a feud between mob families)
Spellgame #2 (Speaking of long-delayed Speakeasy books... finally issue two of this book! Really enjoyed the first issue)
Star Wars Empire #38 (Both Empire and Republic have been great lately, going out strong)
Star Wars Republic #80
Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk #1 (I just can't imagine it living up to the hype, but I love Lost and Lindelof's writing so I have to check it out)
Wimbledon Green Hc (New graphic novel by Seth. Also highly anticipated.)
X-men Deadly Genesis #2 (Kind of enjoyed the first issue, a blend of horror, superheroes and mystery. Like Brubaker's Cap, I'm not entirely sure I like it as a fan of the Marvel Universe, but stepping back and looking at is as a more unbiased comic book fan, it's good writing)

Weekly Comics to Come - December 14, 2005:

ALREADY READ:
100 Bullets #67 (I'm having a hard time keeping up with the plot in single issues, but the mood and style is still there)
Amazing Joy Buzzards Vol 2 #3 (Rock and roll cartoon craziness continues)
DMZ #2 (Good "tour of the city" second issue following up on an excellent first issue)
Fables #44 (Great surprises and plot twists, this book keeps getting better and better. Quite possibly my favorite comic running right now)
Glx-mas Special (I wasn't completely crazy about the GLA miniseries (traded this week), but this special is kind of fun, and plays off the mini, so I may need to give it another shot)
Gravity Big City Super Hero Digest (Loved this new collegiate hero entry into the Marvel Universe though. Highly recommended digest)
Nothing Better #2 (Second issue of Tyler Page's college drama/humor series. Review HERE)
Smoke Vol 1 Tp (Really enjoyed this dark future actioner by Alex De Campi and Igor Kordey... and IDW trades are always swanky)
Temporary Vol 1 Tp (Dug the four issues of quirky stories of an office temp in weird jobs that are collected here as well)
Villains United Tp (I loved this series for five issues... and was really disappointed in some aspects of the ending. It's a super heavy week for me with trades anyway, so I will probably wind up giving it a pass)
X-factor #1 (Kind of fun, in the same vein as Peter David's Madrox mini. Has potential)

HAVEN'T READ:
Bad Planet #1 (Curious to see this action/sci-fi series, cowritten by Steve Niles and Tom Jane)
Best Of The Spirit Tp (My chance to finally own some Spirit stories, since the archives were too pricey for me)
Fantastic Four Visionaries John Byrne Vol 5 Tp (I think I might be getting my fill of Byrne's FF, but I'll probably pick this one up and might keep going until the end, if I enjoy it)
Further Adventures Of One Page Filler Man Gn (Mahfood at his funniest, at least in the doses I've sampled)
Fused One Shot (I enjoyed the first Fused mini, and though the constantly changing artists sapped a lot of my enthusiasm and the second mini was not as strong, I'm still interested in seeing what Niles is doing with the character)
Hawaiian Dick The Last Resort #3 (Holy crap! With this, Samurai: Heaven & Earth #5 and Secret War Book Five all coming out this week after long, long delays... the apocalypse isn't coming right before Christmas, is it?)
Local #2 (Great first issue... second one is sure to be as good or better)
Noble Causes #15 (Really enjoying the new life that a sinister family of "anti-Nobles" has added to this book)
What If Wolverine (Like the concept of historically displaced heroes in the Marvel Universe. Not super excited about '30s gangster Wolverine, but curious at least)

Off My Routine:
On Friday, I went in for jury duty, and was dismissed along with everybody else after about half an hour. So with my Friday unusually free (I usually work), my wife and I went Christmas shopping for our daughter and then went to see Chronicles of Narnia. I loved it. Haven't read the book, although I did see the animated version when I was a kid, although most of that hadn't stuck with me either, so it was as new to me as Lord of the Rings was when I saw that. Now I'm curious to read the Narnia books, but I'm not sure I've really got the time or the inclination to pick them up or just wait for the movies at this point. We'll see, I guess.

Anyway, this day off wound up being a busier Friday than usual (I was only home for about 15 minutes all day) and I'm working at the store on Saturday and Sunday as well as running some errands on Monday, so it was a pretty busy weekend. The upshot of this is that there will be no reviews from me on Fourth Rail this week, although I will have a new Recommended Reading on Friday (and an update for the Fables Recommendation with the newest issue).

This seems as good a time as any to mention my planned holiday schedule for Fourth Rail. My guess at this point is that I'll have a First Issue Spotlight the week of the 18th (although I'll be out of town that weekend doing Christmas stuff with my wife's family, so it probably won't go up until Wednesday night or Thursday morning) and then I probably won't have any new reviews until next year. I just feel like I need a break, so I'm taking one. I will more than likely still have a new Recommended Reading every Friday, but I might wind up taking a break from those on Friday the 23rd and Friday the 30th as well, depending on how busy my holiday season actually is.

Wired:
This link is to Xeni Jardin of Boing-Boing interviewing my favorite director, Steven Soderbergh. Short, but good.

I Lost:
Well, my dreams of Celebrity Poker Showdown-hood are over. The final tournament started at 8 PM last night, and I was out by 8:30. I got horrendously bad cards, and when I finally got a good pocket pair (queens), I went up against two people who went all in (both had shorter stacks than me, so I suspected both had weaker hands)... one had pocket kings, the other drew a straight on the river, and that took over half my remaining chips. From there, with my cards still coming pretty weak, it was pretty much a given that I wasn't gonna make it to the final table.

I could have played a little tighter, but overall I think I played as well as I could with the cards I got. I went out somewhere in the 220s out of 319 players total. Ah, well... I guess it's back to my backup plan: Get a recurring role on a sitcom or drama at one of the big four networks. ;)

Evil, Inc. = Kickass webcomic:
I don't review webcomics, just because I don't even have the time to keep up with all the print comics I receive, but that doesn't mean I don't read them and, on occasion, find new ones. I just spent the last hour or so reading Evil Inc. by Brad Guigar and it is *fantastic*. Very funny, great characters, great high concept (behind the scenes at a supervillain corporation) and art that reminds me of Aaron Williams crossed with Garry Trudeau. Really great stuff, and well worth a read.

I'm also digging PVP, Penny Arcade, The Perry Bible Fellowship and Girls With Slingshots, just for the record.

Comics Stuff - Monthly Update for November
This is the latest monthly update to the left column of the blog, listing my Current Favorite Monthly Titles, which is my counterpart to Current Favorite TV series, as well as my five favorite first issues of the month and my ten favorite graphic novel reads of the month.

A couple things of note in how I organize these things, for those who care. These listings are alphabetical, not by rank of how much I liked them in comparison. I've narrowed it down to five or ten, beyond that is further narrowing of which one I liked best than I want to do on a monthly basis, at least right now. My criteria for what makes the list is when I read them, not necessarily when they were published. And thirdly, I was relatively strict on the monthly series, in that it has to be a series that is solicited and actually printed monthly (for the most part, at least), and it has to be either ongoing or a long limited series (at least 30 issues) instead of a limited series. This is primarily why, for example, Age of Bronze (irregular schedule), True Story Swear to God (irregular schedule) and The Middle Man (limited series) didn't make the list. Of course, both The Goon and Walking Dead are not really as monthly as they mean to be, but hey, my blog, my rules.

In each case, I've provided a link for the listing, usually to one of my reviews (for further info on my opinion), but in the case of the monthly books and books I haven't reviewed, I've provided links to official publisher or creator sites or the best source of info I could find relatively easily. Oh, and the numbers in parentheses on the monthly titles is their latest ranking on the Diamond Top 300. Usually that's for the October Top 300, but some books (like Ex Machina) didn't have a new issue in that month, so the rating is a month old.

Finally, the updates are for the month of November... December just barely started. So all my favorites will be anywhere from a week to a full month old, but these are meant to be sort of "standing" preferences anyway.

Weekly Comics to Come - December 7, 2005:

ALREADY READ:
Batman And The Monster Men #2 (If you've been disappointed with the campy, over-the-top All Star Batman, I'd especially recommend Matt Wagner's Batman tale, much more close in tone to Batman: Year One with an added touch of superhero flavor and great art)
Demo Collection Tp (Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan's great series of 12 one-shot tales collected in one volume)
Jonah Hex #2 (Solid second issue of the episodic western)
Looking Glass Wars Hatter M #1 (A dark take on Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter... review HERE)
Marvel Team-up #15 (Kind of fun. Kirkman puts many of the "morts" of the Marvel Universe front and center with a clever gimmick... too bad that the stories are getting better after Scott Kolins departed on art)
Marvel Zombies #1 (Twisted and funny... it's not a masterpiece or anything, but it is darkly fun for fans of horror/comedy)
New Warriors #6 (Solid conclusion to the entertaining miniseries)
Team Zero #1 (Surprisingly good first issue of a new action-oriented military miniseries... G.I. Joe fans should check this out)
Vimanarama Tp (I'm still not sure I liked it that much, but it's Morrison and Bond, and there's too much neat stuff not to pick up the trade)
What If Captain America (Sort of an OK story, but the new framing device and the idea of a parallel world with time-displaced Marvel heroes has real potential)
Y The Last Man #40 (More Y... what more can I say at this point?)

HAVEN'T READ:
Age Of Bronze #22 (Wow, that was pretty quick... guess I'll have to update the Recommended Reading)
Down #2 (Really enjoyed the first issue of this crime stuff... Harris's work looks great with these colors)
Essential Spider-Woman Vol 1 Tp (The only real benefit of New Avengers to me is a resurgence for Spider-Woman, a character I've always kind of liked despite having read virtually zero stories with her in them)
Image Comics Holiday Special 2005 (Real solid line-up of talent for Image's holiday special)
Jla Classified Cold Steel #1 (Chris Moeller returns with a Justice League mecha story... curious to see how this one comes out)
Lost Squad #2 (First issue had good art, solid if predictable storytelling... I'll see what the second issue has to offer)
Maze Agency #1 (Never read this back in the day, but I'm curious to see what it's like)
Nat Turner #2 (Finally! Kyle Baker's beautiful and moving opus about the leader of a failed slave revolt gets underway once more)
Penny Arcade 1x 25 Cents (Penny Arcade = funny. And for 25 cents, you can't go wrong)
Robotika #1 (Art on this one looked gorgeous)
Rock N Roll One Shot (Ditto for this)
Seven Soldiers Mister Miracle #2 (Not even sure who's doing art for this one, and Mister Miracle #1 was the most disappointing Seven Soldiers for me so far, but... I've got to see this through to see if Morrison pulls it out in the end)
Surrogates #3 (The third issue of the fantastic speculative science fiction miniseries from Top Shelf)
Tails #1 (Animal activists in love!)

Music to Check Out:
My musical tastes are much less considered, more sprawling and yeah, probably worse than my tastes in comics, television, movies, etc... but I know what I like. And I really like what I've heard of The Metasciences, which I found through Warren Ellis's Apparat podcast.

You can download the whole album from their myspace page.

And any comics fan who doesn't have "Four Color Love Story" by the Metasciences in their collection is really, really, really missing out.

Upcoming on Fourth Rail - December update:
Time for my monthly update on what's coming from me on Fourth Rail in the future (both near and far). This is roughly in order of when I expect to get to them, but pay careful attention to the "roughly" in that sentence.

I've broken down my massive graphic novel pile (well, one of them at any rate - there are three more on my night table) into genres, hoping that this will spur me to get to them a bit quicker than I have been. The genres are not always a perfect match, and some of them I had to basically dump into an "other" genre because they were tough to classify, and some of the genre blocks (like horror) are big enough that they'll probably take two columns instead of one, but... well, this is all general anyway.

This also presumes I take no time off during Christmas or New Year's, which is probably unrealistic.

*Image trade updates (Reviews of the latest volumes of Image series trades, including Invincible Vol. 5, PVP Vol. 3, Walking Dead Vol. 4, Girls Vol. 1 and Death Jr.) - Expect these in the next week or so, unless I decide to fold some of them into upcoming "Recommended Reading" features

*Snapshots (A variety of material for capsule reviews, including Battle Pope #4, Conan & The Demons of Khitai #2, Karma Incorporated #2-3, Lethargic Lad Special #3, The Lonely Tombstone, Nodwick #30, Peng, PS 238 #13, Red Sonja: One More Day, The Roach #2-3, Star Wars: X-Wing Rogue Squadron #2, Wannabe #2, Dork Tower #32, Grounded #3, Star Wars Empire #37, Star Wars Republic #78-79, Zombie Tales Oblivion) - I'm trying to get caught up on Snapshots, so expect these (as well as additions from comp lists and new releases) parcelled out on a regular basis over the next few months - or I may just hit all of them within two weeks. Who knows? This is sort of an ongoing category.

*Speakeasy Focus (The Hunger TPB, The Living & The Dead OGN, Parting Ways OGN, Adventures of Bio-Boy #1, Spellgame #1, Ellium Vol. 1, Super-Crazy TNT Blast #1, Helios: In With The New #1, Elk's Run Compilation and maybe a couple more) - Unless the Hunger TPB comes out in the next week or two, I'll probably skip it and go with what I've got - I'll definitely try to get this done by mid-December

*Graphic Novel Spotlight - Mixed Category: This will include graphic novels I couldn't easily fit into a genre, currently: Coffee and Donuts, Comic Pulp Vol. 2, Wings of Anansi, Love As a Foreign Language, Favole Book One, Ojo and 2 Sisters - Probably second or third week of December

*December First Issue Spotlight (Currently to include Down, Paradox, Chicanos, Living in Infamy, plus whatever else comes out between now and then - I may skip this in December if more first issues don't turn up... and I may pass on any of those listed if we don't have them in stock at the store when I decide to do the reviews, as I don't have copies of any of them in my hands) - Either late December or early January

*Graphic Novel Spotlight - Action: Currently includes Army of Darkness: Shop Til You Drop Dead, The Faceless: A Terry Sharp Story, Full Moon Fever, Ganglords of Chinatown, The Ride & Ronin Hood of the 47 Samurai - Either late December or early January

*Another Mini-Comics Spotlight (Red Ice, Happy Birthday Anyway, Styx Taxi: As Above, So Below, 3 from Rob Croonenborghs, T-Frags: All-Comic Annual 2005, Hero Camp mini collection, Division Shadow) - Probably late December, maybe early January

*Graphic Novel Spotlight - All-Ages: Currently includes Alison Dare Vol. 2, Dare Detectives Vol. 1, Decoy: Menagerie Vol. 1, Electric Girl Vol. 3, Yets! - Probably mid-January

*Graphic Novel Spotlight - Horror: Currently includes Damn Nation, Dead@17: Rough Cut Vol. 3, The Fog, Hack/Slash: First Cut, Indigo Vertigo, The Irregulars, Runoff Vol. 2, Sea of Red Vol. 1 & Zombieworld: Winter's Dregs & Other Stories - Probably late January

*Graphic Novel Spotlight - Humor: Currently includes Dork Tower Vol. 8, The Groo Odyssey, Humor Can Be Funny, Hutch Owen: Unmarketable!, The Legend of Wild Man Fischer, Tales of Supernatural Law Vol. 1, Tozzer 2, You Deserved It - Probably late January or early February

*Graphic Novel Spotlight - Science-Fiction/Fantasy: Currently includes And the Sky Turned White, Forgotten Realms: Homeland, NYC Mech Vol. 1, Ring of Roses, Saint Germaine, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures Vol. 4 - Probably mid-February

*Series spotlights (Raider 1-3, Cocopiazo #1-4, Students of the Unusual #2-6, Penguin Books' Treasure Island, The Wizard of Oz and MacBeth) - My goal is to mix these in between weeks, with Raider being first up

*Book Reviews (whenever I get time to read them) including: Foul Play! (The Art and Artists of EC Comics - Might include this with my horror focus column), Path of the Just/Path of the Bold, Will Eisner: A Spirited Life, I Was Someone Dead, Superman On The Couch, Hellboy: Odder Jobs - These will probably take some time

*Recommended Reading - Upcoming Recommended Reading features for December are currently slated to include Age of Bronze, Usagi Yojimbo, Invincible, Y: The Last Man and Conan (which is why you won't see any Snapshots on these anytime soon, they're going in the Recommended Reading features)

Weekly Comics to Come:

ALREADY READ:
Hack Slash Land Of Lost Toys #1 (The latest Hack/Slash offering, with swanky art by Dave Crosland. Review HERE)
Legend Of Grimjack Vol 4 Tp (More classic Grimjack reprints... I have all the original issues, but I still love the reprints IDW is doing, on nice paper with great production values)
Pvp Vol 3 Pvp Rides Again Tp (The latest volume of Scott Kurtz's humor strip)
Walking Dead Vol 4 Hearts Desire Tp (And the latest volume of the best zombie comic on the market)

HAVEN'T READ:
Amazing Fantasy #15 (Big 'ol "new characters" issue... curious to see how this turns out)
Bprd The Black Flame #4 (I'll be interested to see if the ramifications of last issue turn out to be permanent. I'll be updating my Recommended Reading probably for Friday)
Chicanos #1 (Translated material by Carlos Trillo and Eduardo Risso)
Colonia Vol 2 On Into Great Lands Tp (Really enjoyed the first volume of this odd series, way back when... glad to see a second one)
Fear Agent #2 (More blue collar sci-fi from Remender and Moore)
Fell #3 (The latest of what is probably Ellis's best ongoing series of the moment)
Living In Infamy #1 (Supervillains retired and in witness protection, *not* played for laughs... sounds intriguing)
Middleman #4 (The conclusion of the first mini about secret agents protecting the world from aliens, monsters and giant mob monkeys)

Thanksgiving:
If you're coming here from The Fourth Rail, I apologize for the no update. I'm being a bit lazy, because I have a new review of Off Road written, but I figured a fair number of my readers wouldn't be reading at work on Turkey Day anyway, and so I'll just update that when I update my Recommended Reading (updated Godland and a new one on True Story Swear to God) on Friday.

I have seen some folks going on about the whole "Thanksgiving is based on lies, etc." thing, and I gotta say, this might be the one thing I really agree with the right wing on. My essential take is "Fuck you, let me have my holiday." I feel the same way about Christmas. Yes, it's materialistic, it's been co-opted by the corporations, etc., etc. Stop thinking so heavily about something that is at its best about renewing bonds with friends and family and enjoying good food or presents alongside those people. I'm sorry if your family or your personality makes this time of year hellish for you. But I enjoy it, so fuck you, let me have my holiday.

Wow... cheery holiday thoughts, huh? Sorry, a couple folks set me off on this today. But really, Thanksgiving is that time of year when you're supposed to give thanks. OK, primarily it's that time of year when you eat way too much food. But it's *also* about giving thanks. So, a quick list of things I'm thankful for, in no particular order and with no regard for the fact that some are completely trivial and some are not.

What I'm thankful for:

*My wife and my daughter. Everyday. Without them, the rest of it would mean absolutely nothing.

*My parents, who are some of the sweetest people I know, and who never once expressed any anger at putting me through 4 1/2 years of college so that I could become an unpaid comic reviewer and poorly-paid comic shop manager.

*My friends, who have provided me with plenty of laughter and much-needed support over the years.

*My readers at the Fourth Rail, especially those who have appreciated my shift away from my traditional fare into different topics of review and different formats

*I won the Celebrity Poker Showdown online, and I'm headed to the finals.

*iTunes, my iPod and my new Saturn, with the built-in iPod deck. Truthfully, I barely remember what radio sounds like. And I haven't heard a radio ad in literally a year or two.

*Great comics. There are a lot of them out there.

*Great TV. Lots of that too, although this one's dampened by the recent news about Arrested Development. Still, on that front, I'm glad for over 50 episodes of some of the most brilliant TV comedy ever.

*Burgers. Chocolate. Coca-Cola. Late night meals at IHOP. All-you-can-eat dumplings at Buffet Palace. Giant burritos from Freebird's. Giant slices of pizza from The Brooklyn Pie Company.

*STAPLE! Man, this is gonna be one badass show in 2006.

*The Basement Tapes, Lying in The Gutters and The X-Axis, possibly the best reason for comics fans to have an Internet connection. Although I'm still a bit bummed that I discovered Fanboy Rampage just in time for Graeme to retire.

*Tivo. DVD burners. Bit Torrent. PSP. Burnout: Revenge on PS/2.

Well, that's a partial list, at any rate.

Phear My Leet Poker Skillz:
So I've been playing in the online Celebrity Poker Showdown tournaments at Bravo. I have to admit that my first inclination to do so was the chance to actually play in the Celebrity Poker Showdown. I love that show, and it has given me a love of Texas Hold'Em, and though the chances seemed impossibly slim, I figured I'd give it a shot.

Then I started playing, and indeed, while I did well (usually lasting in the game for an hour or so, occasionally getting to the top 100 and once or twice the top 50) it seemed likely I was never going to win a tournament. See, the deal is, you win one of the qualifying tournaments, you get to play in the final online tournament, and the top five players there will go on to play Celebrity Poker Showdown in Vegas, and from there maybe on TV with celebrities.

Last night, I got to the final two tables. I went out #17. I figured that was probably the best I was gonna do. Tonight, I came in, and immediately started doing well. 3rd or 4th hand, I was in the top 100. About an hour into the game, I was in the top 50. An hour after that... the top 20 or top 10. Then I got to the final two tables again... and I was the chip leader at my table, and in the top 5 for a lot of the time, top 10 for some of it. Then I got to the final table, and I was the chip leader. A couple big pots, and I was the chip leader by a *lot*... I had over a million in chips, while most of the players were in the hundreds of thousands.

Then I got to the final two. I had a million six hundred thousand, the other player roughly a million and one hundred thousand. It was close, and I was very nervous, but I managed to win a couple pots, push into the big chip lead again and finally... I won.

I WON. A little pop-up gave me my virtual silver chip and told me an email was coming.

This has absolutely made my week. Probably my month. Playing in the final tournament is going to be a nerve-wracking experience, and the odds of me actually making it all the way to Celebrity Poker Showdown are probably slim, but that's what I thought of my odds of getting into the finals as well.

I am so very happy right now.

Weekly Comics to Come - November 23, 2005:

ALREADY READ:
Daredevil #79 ("The Murdock Papers" continues... not crazy about their version of Bullseye, but otherwise still very much enjoying this last Bendis/Maleev story)
Ex Machina #16 (Nice conclusion to the two-parter about Mitchell's mother)
Girls Vol 1 Conception Tp (Very strange little horror/sci-fi tale gets its first collection)
She-hulk 2 #2 (After a somewhat lackluster start, this second issue of She-Hulk is much stronger)
Super Real #1 (Read and enjoyed this one a while back. Review HERE)
X-factor Visionaries Peter David Vol 1 Tp (Peter David's short-lived but very good humor/ mutant/ government hero book gets collected)
Y The Last Man Vol 6 Girl On Girl Tp (Collects the adventures of Yorick and company aboard an Australian ship, great stuff as always)
Young Avengers #9 (Jim Cheung returns, and this issue is the best in several months, with revelations about the secret origin of the shapechanger of the group)

HAVEN'T READ:
Amazing Joy Buzzards Vol 2 #2 (First issue was great... can't wait to read the second)
Conan #22 (Continuing the "Tower of the Elephant" story, which has been great thus far)
Down #1 (Ellis and Harris's long-awaited undercover crime story)
Girls #7 (Starting to wonder if they're ever going to get where they're going, but still compelled to read this weird story, as I can never guess at what's going to happen next)
Godland #5 (More cosmic superhero adventure, and one of my favorite comics running)
Invincible #27 (Continuing the story of Mark's reunion with his father on an alien planet... I'm betting this is the issue where things turn ugly)
Jsa Classified #5 (Supervillain heist story by Jen Van Meter... really looking forward to this, as I love heist stories)
Off Road Gn (I have this one, but haven't read it yet... gorgeous artwork, though, and it's Oni so you know it'll be good.)
Paradox #1 (Christos Gage of Deadshot writes this new steampunk miniseries, and I'll check it out because I've really liked his other work thus far)
Previews Vol Xv #12 (Down the Line coming next week)
Seven Soldiers Frankenstein #1 (The last of the Seven Soldiers minis starts, with terrific artwork by Doug Mahnke)
Seven Soldiers Zatanna #4 (The latest of the Seven Soldiers minis concludes)
Walking Dead #24 (Wow, nothing for several months, now three issues in six weeks)

How to Simultaneously Scare The Shit out of me and make me homicidal:


Christ. That shit ain't *even* funny.

Arrested Development:
By now, those who care have probably heard that Arrested Development Season Three has been cut back from 22 to 13 episodes and canned after that. I kept hoping that the series would "pull a Seinfeld" and catch the ratings it desperately deserved, but it didn't. I'm irked at Fox for the decision, but I can't really blame them, they gave the show a lot of chances. Instead I blame the people who didn't watch it, and I hope your favorite show gets cancelled soon. (Unless your favorite show is also one of mine, in which case I hope your second favorite show gets cancelled. ;)

Bummed that it's all but over, but... on the bright side... that means 8 more episodes, plenty of time for the creators to give the whole thing a great send-off. And I've got all the episodes saved on my Tivo and will keep them until I know for sure that a Season Three DVD set is going to happen. I'd sure love to have the whole thing complete on DVD, but at any rate, I will have the complete series available to watch.

I guess this makes Lost or Veronica Mars my favorite show now. But honestly, much as I love both of them, Arrested Development was way ahead.

Weekly Comics to Come - November 16, 2005:

ALREADY READ:
Batman And The Monster Men #1 (Matt Wagner writes and draws an early days Batman tale, and the first issue, with Hugo Strange, the Roman and a new love interest for Bruce Wayne, is really good)
Black Harvest #1 (Josh Howard launches his new horror book for Devil's Due, and I suspect fans of Dead@17 will dig this one as well)
Death Jr Tp (Loved this as a series from Image, looking forward to having the trade on my shelves)
Essential X-Factor Vol 1 Tp (I have a nostalgic fondness for the early X-Factor stuff)
Fables #43 (The second part of the arabian fables story arc is great. You can see more on my thoughts in Recommended Reading)
Local #1 (Great first issue. Review HERE)
Runaways #10 (Second part of the New York roadtrip, and while I'm not crazy about how Vaughan writes the other heroes, I'm still digging his use of the regular characters)
Thing #1 (Very strong first issue by Dan Slott, with gorgeous artwork by Andrea DiVito)
Vampirella Revelations #1 (If you can get past that ridiculous cheesecake costume, this is actually a really good sci-fi/horror/ action read by Mike Carey and Mike Lilly)

HAVEN'T READ:
All Star Superman #1 (Can it live up to the hype? Well, it certainly can't be as embarrasingly self-parodying as All-Star Batman and Robin, can it?)
Banana Sundays #4 (The conclusion of Root Nibot and Colleen Coover's ultra-cute, ultra-fun talking monkeys tale)
Birds Of Prey #88 (More of Calculator vs. Oracle, and Simone continues to play on the less-Crisis-ed up fringes of the DC Universe, making this one of the few remaining DC superhero books I enjoy)
Concrete Vol 2 Heights Tp (Reading this first trade recently reminded me how good Concrete is, so I'm looking forward to more, especially as I haven't read most of these tales before)
Green Lantern #5 (Like Birds of Prey, Green Lantern is still on the outside of the Crisis stuff for the most part, and the creative team has been doing a bang-up job so far... aside from the lateness, of course)
Hero Squared #3 (The conclusion of Boom! Studios' Bwa-ha-ha miniseries)
Pvp #20 (More gaming and computer-related hilarity from Scott Kurtz, always enjoyable)

STAPLE!
Earlier tonight, I attended the latest planning meeting for STAPLE!, the small press/independent media show here in Austin. The first year, I was more or less uninvolved, although I heard a lot about it since one of my best friends Chris "Dirty Uncle STAPLE" Nicholas was spearheading the show. My contribution was to promise to review a gigantic bag of stuff that I got from the show.

This year, I'm much more involved, going to every planning meeting, putting together the Xeric panel and now heading up the program guide. Lemme tell ya, it's more work on top of an already busy schedule, but there's such a nice sense of satisfaction in doing the work, in doing my part for comics, that I'm just sitting here at the computer with a big grin on my face, even though I spent two hours websearching, emailing and organizing that could otherwise have gone into watching Rome, The Colbert Report or the latest Alias.

There's big doings at STAPLE! this year. Really cool potential news lurking at every turn, and a bunch of folks working their asses off to make it an exceptionally cool show. If you're gonna be in Austin on March 4, 2006, you should make plans to be there, whether as an exhibitor or an attendee, and if you're not gonna be in Austin... well, maybe you should plan to be in Austin. It's gonna be a great show, I can feel it.

Get out and vote... for all the good it'll do you:
I should preface this by saying that I'm sick, so I'm crankier than usual. But I'm also more tired than usual, which may explain my reaction to the passing of Proposition 2 (a.k.a. No gay marriage in Texas). Thing is... I'm not surprised. I knew it was going to pass. I remember voting against a similar, more heinous version of this proposition in Colorado banning "special rights" for gays, and it passed by a wide margin. At least then, I had the balm of having seen Clinton elected into office instead of Bush Sr. for a second term, so I felt like the national elections at least offered a victory for my side.

But Jesus, every time I vote these days, the end result is the opposite of what I'm voting for. By a lot. Bush wins. Bush wins second term (lemme tell ya, that one was the worst, because I really didn't expect it). My surrounding neighbors in Texas vote something like 70-80% to ban gay marriage in the state. At this point, voting for me is a futile gesture that accomplishes nothing, kind of like flipping someone off when they cut you off in traffic but without that short burst of self-satisfaction that fades as you realize it really didn't accomplish anything.

And yet... I'm just not all that angry about this. My wife was furious when I talked to her. My friend Dan was in a rotten mood that night. My buddy Nate has blasted away on his blog. The Haiku Mama has talked it up at hers. But all I can register anymore is a disappointed sigh, and the hopes that in the long term, people will be less stupid or less close-minded. And if you are by chance one of the people who voted for this amendment (or for similar anti-gay measures) and you happen to be reading this, let me be entirely clear:

FUCK YOU AND THE GOD YOU RODE IN ON.

OK, maybe I'm a little angry.

National Novel-Writing Month:
I gather that November is National Novel-Writing Month. Now, I don't have any great desire to write the Great American Novel, but... I do love writing challenges and exercises like this one. It sounds insane, and quite possibly insanity-brewing, but it also sounds like fun, and unlike 24 Hour Comics (another writing challenge that fascinates me) it doesn't require any level of artistic talent to complete.

So... what am I saying? Nothing, yet. It's November 8th, and I don't want to start this late, plus I've got too much else on my plate right at the moment. But maybe next year I'll put reviewing and everything else on hold for a month and try to write a (no doubt really awful) novel. I will also no doubt try to rope Nate into this hell with me, if he's not already doing it this year on his own.

Or maybe next year I will have forgotten all about it or will think it's too much to take on. Could go either way, really.

Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that comics writer Joshua Hale Fialkov (Elk's Run, Western Tales of Terror) is writing a novel during November, a pulp-style murder mystery called "The Miller" that's quite good. And he's got an RSS feed, so you can just have it delivered to your Inbox if you're so inclined.

Back From Wizard World Texas:
Wizard World Texas is sort of a "non-Con" to me, as I compare it to my experiences with focused small press shows like SPX or gigantic events like San Diego, and so I had really done all I was going to do in about an hour. A quick sprint through the exhibition hall turned up mostly dealers, and since I have far too many toys and back issues already, they hold little interest for me. Another quick sprint through Artists' Alley turned up some familiar faces and a few other indy creators, but it pales beside the Artists' Alley of San Diego or the concentrated small press goodness of SPX.

HOWEVER...

That's not to say Wizard World Texas is a bad Con. Really, there are almost no opportunities for people in Texas to catch any of the big names without spending big money on planes and/or hotels, and fans of Ethan Van Sciver, Bryan Hitch and Michael Turner were no doubt delighted by the chance to take a drive instead of a flight and catch a couple of their favorite creators.

I saw Hitch only once, making his way through the hall, but Ethan and colorist Moose Baumann were parked in Artists' Alley throughout a lot of the show and doing really nice full-color sketches for a line of people using fairly reasonable pricing. And if you're a fan of gaming, whether miniatures, RPG or videogames, there was plenty to offer, from the swanky setup of Aeon Flux gaming machines to networked computers and Game Cubes and consoles to Sony's PS/2 and PSP setup in the middle of the hall, all the way to a gigantic gaming area staffed by Wizards of the Coast and Wizkids employees and volunteers.

At any rate, it was a worthwhile weekend trip for me. I got to hang out with Rafael Navarro of SONAMBULO fame and Mike Wellman of MAC AFRO, TEX! and GONE SOUTH, along with a number of friends or acquaintances from here in Austin. I got new sketches for the theme sketchbook from Dave Crosland and Chris Moreno, and a zombie sketch in my regular sketchbook from TRIP TO RUNDBERG's Shawn Richter. All were gorgeous. Richter in particular blew me away with his zombie sketch, and I think this guy might have a Tony Moore-esque "born to draw zombies" quality. Perhaps I should rethink that "zombie moratorium" after all... or maybe I'll just continue to make exceptions for books like RUNDBERG and ZOMBIE TALES.

Outside of convention stuff, we had an enjoyable meal with about a dozen people at Bennigan's (I know, I know, but nobody really had a good local restaurant location for us that we could find, and after a long day of the Con, sometimes you just want a burger and fries) with a waitress who did a really good job keeping up with us, a brief (but late) stop-in at the live art show by Dave Crosland and Jim Mahfood and an immensely difficult time navigating Dallas with stupid Mapquest directions that led to about an hour and a half of drive time for what should have been a 20-minute trip. Thankfully, me and my two travelling companions (Chris Nicholas and Gary Bartos) were in good spirits throughout, including coming up with Nolan Ryan's theme song, and when we finally did get to my sister-in-law's house about 3:00 in the morning, it was nice to have a place to crash.

Weekly Comics to Come - November 9th, 2005:

Also, a note to let people know I'll be at Wizard World Texas in Dallas this Saturday. Say hi if you see me!

ALREADY READ:
DMZ #1 (Really great first issue, gorgeous artwork, I'm expecting great things out of this new Vertigo series)
Grimjack Killer Instinct Tp (Loved this return to form by the original Grimjack team, glad to finally see the trade)

HAVEN'T READ:
Action Comics #833 (More Simone/Byrne, enjoy it while it lasts)
Fantastic Four Wedding Special (Karl Kesel tells a more classic Fantastic Four story celebrating 40 years of Reed and Sue's marriage... in which time, Franklin has aged three years)
Gotham Central #37 (New story arc, I believe)
Losers Close Quarters Tp (I stopped reading Losers in issues because I knew I'd enjoy the trades more. This is the first trade to come out since I stopped)
Love As A Foreign Language #4 (More of Joel and Hana's Korean romance, as delivered by J. Torres and Eric Kim)
Manga Masters Of The Art Tp (I've only skimmed this book a little, but it looks amazing, informative and packed with sketches and artwork as well)
Manhunter Vol 1 Street Justice Tp (I've been planning on giving this book a second chance, so I'll check out the trade and see if it clicks better with me the second time around)
New Warriors #5 (More cartoony fun from Zeb Wells and Skottie Young)
Polly & The Pirates #2 (Enjoyed the first issue, looking forward to learning more about Naifeh's pre-teen pirate queen Polly)
Rex Mundi #15 (More alternate history magic/conspiracy/horror from Image)
Scorpion Poison Tomorrow Digest Tp (Enjoyed the first couple chapters of this one enough to pick up the digest and read the whole story)
Star Wars Empire #37 (I really like what this creative team does with Star Wars from the Imperial point of view. First issue of this story (#36) was great, the rest should be as well)
Tales Of The Closet Vol 1 One Two Three Tp (Early, early Ivan Velez Jr. work, and since I dug his work at Milestone, I want to see what his earlier stuff looked like)
Walking Dead #23 (Ready for this book to get out of the prison and back on the road... the story's dragging a bit. But I'm still fascinated by all the characters)
Y The Last Man #39 (One of my favorite reads every month)

My Videogame Wish List:
I've recently realized that there are a bunch of videogames either out recently or coming out soon that I'm really interested in.

*Soul Calibur III - I bought a Dreamcast entirely to get Soul Calibur, and never regretted the purchase. Part of the reason I finally broke down and bought a PS/2 was to get Soul Calibur II. I *love* this game series, and can't wait to play the newest version. Burnout Revenge is a great party game, but Soul Calibur II has also been the center of many a fun game night with friends.

*Guitar Hero - I have resisted the urge to buy the Karaoke Revolution or Dance Dance Revolution (save a PS1 DDR and DDR mat that Suzanne got me for Christmas a couple years back) because it's the kind of thing you play in groups, and usually that group includes my friends Lana and Cindy, who own all the Karaoke Revolutions and many of the DDR games. But this looks just too cool. Guitar Hero is a rhythm game where you play along with songs on actual guitar controllers! The guys over at Penny-Arcade have been talking it up, and they also pointed to the multiplayer bundle that retails for just over a $100 and comes with two guitar controllers and the game. Said bundle has gone on my Amazon wish list, even though Amazon is listing it as unavailable at the moment.

*Star Wars Battlefront II - Loved Battlefront. Rented it and played the hell out of it on the PS/2, then bought it on the PC and played it a lot there. This one looks even cooler, better graphics, lets you play Jedi, engage in bigger space battles, etc. Definitely on my X-Mas list for the PS/2, and maybe the PSP as well.

That's without mentioning upcoming PSP games I have an interest in like Infected or older PS/2 games like Destroy All Humans! and God of War that I really should have in my library. But, as mentioned in the previous post, the car situation has taken a chunk out of my finances that was unexpected, so splurging on game purchases is not in the cards right now. I'll hope for a happy, game-filled Christmas, even though that means any serious play time on these games is about two months away.

So I Have A New Car:
Of late, I've written of issues with my car, specifically the antifreeze, which was leaking. After spending $1400 (from savings bonds which had been earmarked to become actual savings, but oh well) on the car about three weeks ago, everything seemed to be running fine. And then...

Saturday, I came out of work to find a large pool of antifreeze beneath my car. So large, in fact, that combined with the flashing warnings I'd been getting, I figured I should see what was up before I even drove home. What was up was that the leak was worse than ever, and the radiator was in fact damn near empty. I risked the drive home (and it went OK, with the engine temperature staying normal) and resolved to take it in on Monday. Suzanne placed the call for me on Monday morning when she got up to get me a 1:00 appointment.

At 1:00, I took the car down and dropped it off. At 3:30, I got the call I feared from the techs. Not a mere loose connection or bad seal or faulty radiator... cracked cylinders. $900 minimum, more likely another $1500, and a total engine rebuild kinda thing. "Is there any value on trading it in?" "That's what I would do if I were in your shoes" is what the tech told me. So Suzanne hauled me down to Saturn once again and went to drop off Katy before coming back to help me pick out a car.

Some of you may be wondering why I would immediately go back to Saturn when my last Saturn had just crapped out on me. Well, I drove that car almost 90,000 miles for 10 years and, aside from one minor problem with the starter and the usual tire and battery issues (which I had in low frequency), this was really the first problem I've had with it. It was a *damn* good car.

I met with Connie, who was really great, and who had a car on the lot that was a manual transmission (my preference), manual locks/windows (my preference) Ion 2 (comparable to my 10-year-old SL2) for about $13k, which was in the right price range. She went back to her manager after I told her my tale of repair woe and got $700 back for me as a credit on my trade-in, which was great. So by the time Suzanne came back (about 10-15 minutes later) she was surprised that I had already picked out the new car. To my delight, the Saturn radios now come standard with input jacks so I could plug my iPod in, which was one of my bigger concerns about getting a new car.

I've been driving the car for a couple days now and I really love it. The financial hit was unfortunate, but survivable, taking a chunk out of my savings and forcing us into two car payments for the month of December, when we'll hopefully use Christmas money to pay off the rest of Suzanne's car. All told, I probably would have rather had more choice in when I got a new car so that I could take my time and look around, and I would really have enjoyed having my old car for another year or so and having a solid year without car payments, but... I can't complain. It's a nice car that I'm enjoying driving. It just means watching the expenses for a little while. More on that in the next post.

Comics Stuff - Monthly Update for October
This is the latest monthly update to the left column of the blog, listing my Current Favorite Monthly Titles, which is my counterpart to Current Favorite TV series, as well as my five favorite first issues of the month and my ten favorite graphic novel reads of the month.

A couple things of note in how I organize these things, for those who care. These listings are alphabetical, not by rank of how much I liked them in comparison. I've narrowed it down to five or ten, beyond that is further narrowing of which one I liked best than I want to do on a monthly basis, at least right now. My criteria for what makes the list is when I read them, not necessarily when they were published. And thirdly, I was relatively strict on the monthly series, in that it has to be a series that is solicited and actually printed monthly (for the most part, at least), and it has to be either ongoing or a long ongoing (at least 30 issues) instead of a limited series. This is primarily why, for example, Age of Bronze (irregular schedule), True Story Swear to God (irregular schedule) and Banana Sundays (limited series) didn't make the list. Of course, both The Goon and Walking Dead are not really as monthly as they mean to be, but hey, my blog, my rules.

In each case, I've provided a link for the listing, usually to one of my reviews (for further info on my opinion), but in the case of the monthly books and books I haven't reviewed, I've provided links to official publisher or creator sites or the best source of info I could find relatively easily. Oh, and the numbers in parentheses on the monthly titles is their latest ranking on the Diamond Top 300. Usually that's for the September Top 300, but some books (like Ex Machina) didn't have a new issue in that month, so the rating is a month old. In the best example of how pushing out biweekly pop comics kills the market for lower-rated comics, most of the series I follow jumped up about six or more slots this month, because there weren't two issues of House of M taking up two spaces on the charts... just two issues of Ultimate Spider-Man and New Avengers. Damn you, Bendis, you prolific, talented bastard! ;)

Finally, the updates are for the month of October... November just barely started. So all my favorites will be anywhere from a week to a full month old, but these are meant to be sort of "standing" preferences anyway.

Upcoming on Fourth Rail:
Time for my monthly update on what's coming from me on Fourth Rail in the future (both near and far). This is roughly in order of when I expect to get to them, but pay careful attention to the "roughly" in that sentence.

*Another Indy Spotlight (Comic Pulp Vol. 1, Rocket Rabbit 1, The Calling, Something So Familiar, The Wandering Schoolgirl, Nothing Left to Lose) - Next week, maybe?

*Speakeasy Focus (The Hunger TPB (due next week, I believe), The Living & The Dead OGN, Parting Ways OGN, Adventures of Bio-Boy #1, Spellgame #1-2, Ellium Vol. 1, Super-Crazy TNT Blast #1, Helios: In With The New #1, Elk's Run Compilation and maybe a couple more) - Expect this one about a week after The Hunger TPB comes out, so probably mid-November

*Manga Spotlight (Rising Stars of Manga Vol. 5, Steady Beat, I Luv Halloween, Naoki Urusawa's Monster (running late), Japan v.1, The Monkey King v.1) - Waiting on Monster's release, which at this point may be late November or early December... if it's later than that, I'll probably run this without it

*Another First Issue Spotlight (The Lonely Tombstone, Giant Monster, Army of Darkness vs. Reanimator #1, Robotika Preview, Zombie Tales: Oblivion, Season of the Witch, Black Harvest plus whatever first issues come in between now and this feature) - I'd like to hit these earlier, but if all the other spotlights come through, it seems likely it'll probably be first or second week in December

*Another Mini-Comics Spotlight (Red Ice, Happy Birthday Anyway, Styx Taxi: As Above, So Below, 3 from Rob Croonenborghs) - Probably late December, want to wait until I get a couple more submissions if possible - I suppose I might pick some up at Wizard World Texas, which might move this up

*Graphic Novel reviews including some or all of: Tales of Supernatural Law v.1, Off-Road, Ring of Roses, Hack/Slash Vol. 1, Faceless: A Terry Sharp Story, Indigo Vertigo, NYC Mech Vol. 1, Zombieworld: Winter's Dregs, Sea of Red Vol. 1, Runoff 2, Decoy Menagerie, Humor Can Be Funny, Full Moon Fever, 2 Sisters, The Ride, Tozzer 2, Electric Girl 3, Ronin Hood of the 47 Samurai, Wings of Anansi, And The Sky Turned White, Ojo, The Legend of Wild Man Fischer, Hutch Owen: Unmarketable!, The Groo Odyssey and The Irregulars - I try to hit some of these on a weekly basis

*Series spotlights (Raider 1-3, Cocopiazo #1-4, Students of the Unusual #2-6, Penguin Books' Treasure Island, The Wizard of Oz and MacBeth) - I'm trying to work these in on lighter weeks... which I don't seem to have anymore

*Book Reviews (whenever I get time to read them) including: Foul Play! (The Art and Artists of EC Comics), Path of the Just/Path of the Bold, Will Eisner: A Spirited Life, I Was Someone Dead, Superman On The Couch, Hellboy: Odder Jobs - These will probably take some time

That is, of course, in addition to all the stuff that comes into my house and my comics shop on a weekly basis. I'll be done with the "spotlight" stuff by the end of the year, but some of the books and graphic novels (and maybe some of the series) will probably roll on into 2006. Once again, my apologies to those who send me stuff that you often have to wait for the reviews, hopefully they're worth it (positive or negative) when they do hit.

On top of this, I'll be doing my weekly "Recommended Reading" columns, which I hope everyone is enjoying. I'm certainly enjoying the shift in format that writing those columns offers, and would like to thank Johanna Draper Carlson for the inspiration, as she's been doing it in Comics Worth Reading for years. Up next in these columns are: Runaways, Fables, Solo, True Story Swear to God, Age of Bronze and Usagi Yojimbo, which will take us into mid-December.

Weekly Comics to Come - November 2, 2005:

HAVEN'T READ:
Catwoman When In Rome Hc (What I read of this, I liked, enough to order the hardcover, especially since I have the majority of the Loeb/Sale work in hardcover already)
Essential Marvel Two In One Vol 1 Tp (More '70s Marvel coolness in overstuffed black and white volumes)
Exalted #1 (Curious to see what Udon will do with this game-based fantasy comic)
Showcase Presents Jonah Hex Vol 1 Tp (DC's entry into the black and white overstuffed format, and I'm picking this one up as I've got a pretty strong western vibe going right now)
Smax Tp (Alan Moore and Zander Cannon's fantasy follow-up to Top 10, which is the next best thing to getting more Top 10. Finally out in softcover)
Stray Bullets #40 (The previous issue was one of the best Stray Bullets issues in the entire run, so I'm definitely feeling the vibe on this one again)
Top Shelf Conversations #2 (James Kochalka and Jeffrey Brown on a process-investigating collaboration)
Twisted Toyfare Theatre Vol 6 Tp (I think five volumes was my limit on this one, but these little toy skits are always funny, and a must-buy for those who enjoy Cartoon Network's Robot Chicken)

ALREADY READ:
Desolation Jones #4 (I think I'm going to prefer reading this one in trade, but I am leaning towards picking up the trades at this point. Certainly JH Williams III's art is gorgeous)
Invincible Vol 5 Facts Of Life Tp (The latest collection of Invincible, one of the best superhero comics on the market right now)
Jonah Hex #1 (Solid opener for the non-Vertigo Jonah Hex series, a good teen counterpart to the adults-only Loveless)
Marvel Adventures Spider-man #9 (Self-contained old school Spidey story by the Gravity team of Sean McKeever and Mike Norton. Has Doom, and is plenty of fun)
Marvel Team-up #14 (Invincible and Spider-Man team-up! Fun issue, albeit not as good as your average issue of Invincible on its own, but there's a surprising tie-in to Invincible continuity in there as well)
Seven Soldiers The Bulleteer #1 (Solid start for the latest Morrison outing, with really nice artwork by Yanick Paquette)
Spider-man Unlimited #12 (Might be the best Spider-Man comic produced this year, with stories by Christos Gage and Mike McKone and Tom Beland and Sean Phillips. Must buying, even for a mostly trade guy like myself)
Young Avengers Vol 1 Sidekicks Hc (I'm holding out for a softcover, but despite a weaker second arc thus far, I'm still planning on buying the softcover of this series)

New Queen & Country Novel:
How is it that despite regularly reading Newsarama, CBR, The Beat, The Pulse, the Oni Buzz newsletter, etc., it was in Entertainment Weekly that I first learned that the second Queen & Country novel is coming out tomorrow?!

I'm not wild about a lot of Rucka's DC work right now, but I love his novels and I love Queen & Country. Given my current reading schedule and piles of novels (graphic and prose), I'll probably hold off until softcover on this one... or more likely, put the hardcover on the Christmas list... but if I get some loose spending cash between now and then, I'll definitely pick this up. The first novel was great, and with the series on what seems like indefinite hiatus, this might be the only way to keep up with these characters for a while.

Curious about Shuck?
Shuck is a comic book that I've reviewed a few times (here are links for the trade paperback and first issue of the new series), but now Rick Smith is doing something kind of cool, something that's catching on in small press comics, and making it all available to sample online.

So you can now check out every issue of Shuck, from the graphic novel on to the new series, in full color, on the web. Give it a look!