That's only one of my favorite friends Boston's favorite son of fun, Kevin Church, Mister BeaucoupKevin, Lord of The Rack*, Ground Control for The Loneliest Astronauts**, and...um...the guy who writes She Died in Terrebonne***. (There! Did I get in all my up-to-date plugs in, Mister C.?) It's not even my birthday, and Kevin sent me a dandy present: a commissioned color sketch of Ben Grimm as Blackbeard drawn by my favoritest artist, Colleen Coover! It's an overload of delightful-osity!
Arrrr, click me to blow me up, ye scurvy dog!
Man oh man, that some kind of wonderful. Thank you Kevin, thank you Colleen! You guys, much like Ben Grimm, totally rock.
Looks like I've got quite a good start on my "Wall o' Colleen Coover" with this and some of my other Colleen art, like the wonderful portrait of yours little stuffed truly she sent me for my birthday:
Click image to bubble-size
And there's the Colleen Coover Zatanna sketch I won on eBay from Comix4Sight, auctioning of lovely collectible things to raise funds to help John Ostrander in his fight against glaucoma.
It's a wonderful piece of art and a fantastic cause, and you can help too: Comix4Sight has more great items up for bidding on eBay that'll contribute to the fundraising.
So, I have the bestest pals, and the niftiest original art. I've got just about everything I need in the world!
Almost everything. (Hint, hint:)
*Co-created with Benjamin Birdie.
**Co-created with Ming Doyle.
***Co-created with T. J. Kirsch.
****And don't forget (even tho' I momentarily did!) Lydia, co-created with Max Riffner.
#20: THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN: THE BLACK DOSSIER Probably one of the most eagerly awaited comics of the year (because it was actually due in 2006), the sequel to Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's metafiction high adventure comics brings back Mina Harker and Alan Quatermain into the strange and bizarre world of 1958 Britain (curiously enough, a 1958 that's post-1984). As always, part of the fun is in spotting the literary allusions and characters that sneak in—I howled with delight when I spied a Winged Avenger comic book from the Avengers TV series, and Moore writes one of the funniest, and perhaps most hapless, James Bonds since Ian Fleming. If I gotta make a few quibbles? Well, most of all, it doesn't really seem to tell a story, being more concerned with a series of documents within the book which tell past histories of the League. To my eyes, Moore's pastiche of P. G. Wodehouse crossed with Lovecraft, which I have to review one of these days, isn't especially convincing on a literary level, but it's at least fun. And if the ending is the equivalent of a big splashy Broadway musical number that wraps up the story but doesn't really make any sense, well, then at least it's in 3-D. Any book that comes with 3-D glasses? I'm so there.
#19: GROO 25th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL He's back! The greatest barbarian of the modern comics age returns with a vengeance, aptly drawn by MADman Sergio Aragonés, with Mark Evanier doing whatever it is that he usually does. One of the great joys of a new Groo story is that it's almost exactly like every other Groo story, and there aren't many series in which you can say that as a positive. Plus, plenty of special features, including a funny and clever "Groo Alphabet." And it leads into the first Groo series in years, Groo: Hell on Earth, which ain't half as dismal as it sounds. Groo is always silly, never stupid, and as long as Evanier and Aragonés keep puttin' 'em out, I'm standing in line with my dimes to buy 'em.
#18: SHAZAM: THE MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL Jeff Smith proves there's life after Bone in this delightful, colorful, and sometimes creepy reinvention of the Captain Marvel legend, which , while making changes to the mythos, preserves more of the joy, charm, and adventure of the original C. C. Beck creation than the current dark-spirited The Trials of Shazam mainstream DC comic does. Smith's tale springs from the classic Monster Society serial of yesteryear but adds his own touches, including the most charming Mary Marvel ever put on paper. Shazam is one of those rare comics that'll appeal to adults as well as children, and I repeat my original request when I first reviewed this: pick up a copy for a kid as well and I bet you'll get him or her hooked.
#17: POPEYE VOL. 2 "WELL BLOW ME DOWN!" For the first time since comic strips were regularly and frequently published in mass market newsstand paperbacks, we're living in a Golden Age of newspaper comic strip reprints, and the range and quality of the projects is enough to please even the fussiest of collectors and fans. Dick Tracy, Peanuts, The Far Side, Gasoline Alley, Dennis the Menace, Pogo, and many more to come are all being reprinted in beautiful archive editions. I'm a big fan of all of 'em (tho' I likely won't be buying The Complete Mary Worth, Volume 1: Mary Meddles in The Affairs of Others). But by far my favorite new reprint project has been Fantagraphics's monolith-sized reprints of Thimble Theater starring that spinach-chawin' sailor man, Popeye. Volume 2, as beautifully designed as the first (with a hard-board cut-out cover and large pages that preserve a full week's worth of continuity). The Popeye stories in this book are some of the best comedy and adventure tales told in the medium: The Rough-House War, King Popeye, and Skullyville (Toughest Town in the World!) Plus, nearly two years of full-page, full-color Sunday strips (including the lower-tier "Sappo" strip by Segar), and an extensive historical essay by Donald Phelps. Pure joy—the only way this could be better were if the book had a scratch-'n'-sniff spinach-scented cover.
#16: THE SIMPSONS MOVIE Eighteen years in the making (sorta) made The Simpsons Movie eagerly awaited, and it didn't disappoint, unless you're one of those cynical, curmudgeonly critics who claim the series hasn't been funny since Mister Plow. Me? I howled with laughter, cheered with excitement and sniffled during the sad bits. It's a bigger and broader story than your average 22-minute TV episode, with more detailed 3D animation and backgrounds but still the same loveable characters (and a few new surprises). You might lament that your favorite didn't get much screen time (me, I was disappointed there wasn't more to do for Mister Burns), but how can you not love a movie that introduced The Sensational Character Find of 2007: The Amazing Spider-Pig:
#15: EMPOWERED Let's get this out of the way right from the start: little stuffed bulls shouldn't be reading Empowered. Uh uh. No way. Not until they're at least late-teenage stuffed bulls. There's enough sex, violence, and near-but-not-complete nudity to rate this a "mature audiences only" and safely shrink-wrap away the naughty bits. But if I were allowed to review this, I'd probably tell you not only how sexy but how relentlessly funny it is: the adventures of a superheroine with serious self-esteem issues (she more often hostage than hero), her burly boyfriend Thugboy, BFF Ninjette, and TV-addicted interdimensional conqueror The Caged Demonwolf. Adam Warren (Dirty Pair, Gen13) is turning out some of the most beautiful work of his career, gorgeously reproduced to look like the original pencils, and the sexy girls and guys stretched out across the pages don't distract from Empowered being one of the most incisive and satirical looks at hero worship and the cult of celebrity in a world with superbeings. It's a pity that superhero fans probably won't pick this up because it looks like manga—and a pity that manga fans won't pick this up because it looks like superheroes. They're missing out on one of the comic delights of 2007 (with more volumes to come in 2008).
#14: TORCHWOOD SERIES 1 Rearrange the letters of "Torchwood" in the correct order and you know what you wind up with? That's right: Hot Rod Cow. For those of you who aren't interested in the weekly series about a little stuffed race car driver, check out Torchwood, the Doctor Who spin-off that's done more for Welsh tourism than any production since How Green Was My Valley. John Barrowman is back as Captain Jack Harkness, surrounding himself with a crack team of experts to investigate the crimes beyond the skills of the Cardiff police—or indeed, the imagination of most mortal men. Darker and grimmer than Doctor Who, but never bleak, Torchwood brings sensibility of The X-Files into the twenty-first century with a compelling cast of characters whose stories grow and intertwine throughout the season. And when it clicks, it strikes dead aim at your heart and brain at the same time: stand-out episodes like "Captain Jack Harkness" and "Random Shoes" had me on the edge of my seat and reaching for my handkerchief to sniffle in at the same time.
#13: COVER GIRL Remember those old To Tell The Truth episodes where a panelist would exempt himself from the final round because he already knew the secret contestant? Well, in the interest of true and honest disclosure, Cover Girl co-creator Kevin Church (mastermind of 
#12: THE ART OF BONE Jeff Smith goes for the hat trick and makes his third appearance on the Fun Fifty list with this dazzling oversized gift book covering the design and evolution of his award-winning Bone series. Beautiful full-color reproductions of covers minus logos, penciled roughs, extensive history and commentary, plus a large collection of Smith's college-era "Thorn" comic strips which inspired Bone. If you're a Boneophile, this is the closest thing to pure heaven—at least until Smith starts work on the sequel Bone 2: Electric Boogaloo.
#11: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS In the course of the Fun Fifty, I've mentioned a few eagerly anticipated 2007 projects—but none have been so intensely awaited worldwide than the concluding volume of J. K. Rowling's Happy Potter series. We've followed Harry from age 11 to age 17 and bought billions of his books, and if you're a fan, the final adventure doesn't disappoint—the last standoff against Voldemort and his minions, a search for mystic talismans as well as the mysterious past of Dumbledore, and more deaths than an issue of What If?. I could be Scroogesque and complain about the massive infodump chapters, including one that brings the climatic battle to a complete halt while we rewind to the past of Harry's family, and that Rowling really could have used an editor in some sections, but I can't deny I awaited this book with increasing excitement the nearer its release approached, and that I devoured it in one night of eager reading...and that I read it all over again the next day. No spoilers here from me if you haven't read it, but the final three words of Deathly Hallows are not only a summation of Harry's life but also a reflection of our contentment with the entire saga.
52 WEEK 45: This comic is fun...sorta. I didn't get a chance to review last week's 52, but take it from me: it was in many ways as gruesome and full of violent imagery as the week before, the first 52 I really didn't care for. How gruesome? Let me put it this way: I may never eat barbecue ribs again. (Naw, I'm jus' kiddin
...they're too yummy!) The gore level is ratcheted down a notch but the violence still is kickin' into high gear as Black Adam goes absolute ape-crap over the deaths in the past issue, becoming a one-man invasion and destruction force of vengeance. The timing aspect doesn't quite work for me here: taking place over several days of one week, as so most issues of 52, makes Alan Scott and Mr. Terrific looking a little slow on the uptake. World's third smartest man, maybe, but work on the reflexes, Michael. But it's not irredeemable: there's a real sense of threat and danger and this really is the Black Adam we've been expecting would roar across the pages of 52 since the first few weeks. It's capped off by a dandy cliffhanger with an absolutely nutball Dr. Sivana (and his scared-to-pants-pooping crew) signaling next week's complete rout of Oolong Island...or maybe Sivana has something up his baggy sleeve? Hmmm, I wouldn't mind if he did!
WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?! GO WEST YOUNG MAN #1: This comic is fun. I spent all last week peering very carefully at old issues of Marvel Spectacular trying to figger out if I could erase the purple prose of Mister Stan Lee and put in a Lindsay Lohan joke. Then I read What Were They Thinking?! That's how the guys who get paid for it—the professionals—do it. I've spoken before about what a big little fan I am of Mystery Science Theater 3000, but I'm also fond of a much-overlooked and earlier TV project sorta in the same vein: Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection. This half-hour TV show (syndicated and then re-run on Nick at Nick in the early 1990s) took old public domain films, chopped 'em up and rearranged 'em, and replaced the soundtrack with new dialogue and music. (If you haven't seen the show, you may have seen similar shorter improv bits of Whose Line is It Anyway?.) Mad Movies was an often-hilarious show (a bit hampered by some very amateur host segments), but as there seems to be no sign of it ever coming out on DVD I'm quite pleased I taped a buncha them on VHS. The What Were They Thinking?! series takes the same approach: cheesy comics of yesteryear redialogued with brand-new comedy jokes. Now, like those panelists on To Tell the Truth that would occasionally excuse themselves because they knew the mystery person, I must in fairness to little stuffed reviewing admit I know Kevin Church, writer of half this issue, guru of 
Ooooh, shiny! So shiny that like a vampire, it's hard to take a photo of it.
Almost 2000 illustrations, over 1700 in color, meaning every single one of your favorite albums and single releases gets featured in depth, including rare collector's items Kevin probably has squirreled away in his Uncle Scrooge-like Pet Shop Boys bin. Lots of photography in colors so candy-bright you wanna lick 'em! But don't.
Also features stills from all of their videos plus filming history, and lots more besides: Christmas cards, Literally magazine, interviews, chronology, concert images, one-off special events, tour programmes, introductory essay and histories plus the proverbial much much more.
It's the perfect gift for you or your pop-savvy friends.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQenrY-T9_-EUVG2XBTW-ZiSnvw_V3JFU-8tiFlhrdgKCUBaE56ekbiILucymY9gA-xa4zdGy_z1Njojw78Z-YnlUiN4PIRRurK7GzqoEg3B-PmXl2RJaS1ZaVKVCEHP-m-WVr2xjqailLu1jlzylysiBGc3sVXLXNMFDzAURyrHhKBfcqyO4/s1600/button-libertybellmarch.jpg" "It's...")
