THE WALKING DEAD #100

This book came out on July 11th. On July 20th at around 12:30 AM a 24 year old psycho shot up a movie theater that was screening the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. 12 people died, around 50 were injured, and it brought back the conversation about violence in the media. I suppose you can argue that if movies, video games, books, and TV shows didn't have a plethora of violence in them then perhaps things like this wouldn't happen. Violence in movies and video games and TV shows and books and comic books is never going away...so we never will know their effect, will we? Granted, there's a lot of violence in the Bible and Greek myths and Shakespeare and those are old...right? But there is a difference between those and video games like Max Payne 3 that came out in May that features you practically shooting and killing everyone in Brazil. The Walking Dead is, obviously, violent...and this issue in particular is brutal. Quite basically, the new bad guy shows up and uses a barbed wire baseball bat to bludgeon Glenn to death. That's the entire book. And it's shocking and sick and it doesn't happen off panel, it's right there for all to see. After the movie theater shooting...should I pause and ponder why I'm reading and entertained by this? Why I can't wait to see Rick's obviously brutal and bloody revenge? Am I fucked up, warped in the head to love a book that is barbaric and wrong and might be a part of the problem? Or are psycho's just psychotic? They'd do it no matter what? Who cares? I guess it says something that this book will probably end up being the best-selling comic book of the year, that it came out amidst the San Diego Comic Con and was the buzzed about book there. If you remember post-Columbine they blamed the video game Doom and violence in the movies and everything they're probably going to blame now. Did anything change after Columbine? Apparently not. Movies are still blood-soaked affairs while sex in movies and porn is usually looked down upon. The movie theater killer lived 15 miles from Columbine and still ordered his ammunition online and didn't have a problem buying a gas mask and a bullet proof vest and guns that are not meant to kill animals. I'm not going to stop reading violent comic books and what does that say about me? Is it too late? Have I lived too long with this constant flow of violent images to be desensitized? It will be curious to see how comic books are affected. DC already postponed this week's Batman: Incorporated #3 because of something mysterious within its pages. I doubt anything will change, and maybe that's a shame.

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN: CENTURY #3 : 2009

I suppose it's fitting that Alan Moore has a new book out amidst the Before Watchmen event DC is putting out. Apparently, DC told Alan Moore that if he came back to write a new Watchmen book that they would give him back the rights to it. Either Alan Moore is a cantankerous old man or he's the world's last great, true artist. I think he's a bit of both...and while his latest book, the final part in the third part of the LOEG series, is mostly mediocre, it's still very readable and enjoyable albeit very, very sad. Harry Potter and Mary Poppins show up in this book (sort of), and Alan Quartermain and the Anti-Christ perish...so if you're looking for "big" happenings, I suppose you'll find them here. Kevin O'Neill's artwork is sloppy in parts but really, that's how he draws, and I've grown to like his work for this series as he's been there since day one (the gorgeous colors certainly help). I have said that the second part of this epic, the one with martians attacking London and Mr. Hyde raping the Invisible Man, was the best thing Alan Moore has ever written. Most would say Swamp Thing or Watchmen...but I love his characterization of Mina and the adventure of it all. The problem with the 2.5 book, The Black Dossier, and this 3rd part, is that a lot of the best characters are gone (namely...Dr. Jeckyl and the Invisible Man) AND the books have veered into LSD territory. But even when Moore is writing a book not as good as his masterpieces they're still intriguing, still entertaining, filled with special things, and odd but interesting. And hell, it's a lot better than Before Watchmen. **1/2