We're all the same on the inside. And the outside, too.

Presenting the Life (ライフ) manga by Suenobu Keiko, featuring the most indistinguishable series of tankoubon covers ever.

Anime Punch, Bomb, Stab, Shoot

So maybe there aren't many anime convention mascots of color in America. But what does a convention mascot stand for, anyway? Anime Punch, the convention that proudly posits otaku as the self-important roaches in humanity's bleak future, has given mascots Ann (19) and Penny (11) a backstory:

Choosing the difficult path of dedicated martial artists they live outside the bounds of civilization, rejecting any comforts, and never backing down from a fight. They are forever white-belts; unable to advance in rank because they killed their master. On top of that, they must face the shame and indignity of not being able to avenge his death because they were the ones who defeated him.

The difficulty of the dedicated martial artists' path is clear; while both girls are "karate white-belts with a traditional karate uniform", Ann uses "a long Japanese sword, or dual pistols" while Penny's "weapons of choice are handfuls of knives or bombs". At first I thought their contradictory backstory was toked up after a few bouts of Street Fighter Turbo, but I can see it all now:

ANN: Tell me, master. Why are we still unable to progress beyond the beginner's white belt?
TIGER SCHULMANN: My young students, karate is more than a martial art. Thus, you will never advance in karate until you understand what karate is, and what it is not.
ANN: Like?
TIGER SCHULMANN: Like that time you unloaded two Glock 9mms full of Black Talons into your sparring opponent on Family Demonstration Day. The point of unarmed self-defense is not to wallow in deadly incendiaries and firearms--a simple point, perhaps too subtle, that seems to have escaped you. Didn't you ever watch The Karate Kid? And you, bomb freak--you're 11. What the hell is wrong with you? You're outside the bounds of civilization!
ANN: The Karate Kid isn't cool. I wanna be like The Matrix. Now that was cool. I watch it a lot. 'Cause it's cool. Yeah... I like The Matrix.
PENNY: Now, master, your fate is sealed, just as you have so cruelly and unjustly sealed ours. [throws bombs and knives] Ahahaha! Ahahaha!
TIGER SCHULMANN: [dead]
ANN: Still, Penny--I think we will keep these karate uniforms, to remind us of what has transpired this dark day.
PENNY: Yes. Also, because they were free with our introductory month of classes.

Weak.

Somehow it has escaped my attention until now that anime conventions--not many famous ones, but anime conventions nonetheless--are commissioning commemorative hand-forged katanas from BowenDragon1. Because nothing says "trust me with your money" like cheesy animated GIFs. Admittedly, katanas aren't nearly as cool as the Flashing Hair Blade, which totally sounds like an exotic concealed weapon for deadly lady assassins everywh--oh. Oh. It's not.

Moving on, as an extra bonus, a blindfolded e.e. cummings writes website copy for the Kumoricon Katana:

pick up will be at BowenDragon1 booth when dealers room is open ID is required. .Swords ordered before August 18, 2007 will be delieverd at show.. after cut off date swords will have to be shipped.. check walk in for delieverly at show.

In any case, should you find yourself paying for one of these things, you'll want to take proper care of it as soon as you get it home. This is best accomplished by quickly and forcefully impaling yourself upon its naked blade--thereby mitigating some, if not all, of the shame of being so pitiable as to have purchased a commemorative anime convention katana. Enjoy!

Dear X-Factor (or next of kin):

Please to be explaining what you are doing in World War Hulk/X-Men #3. You're not exactly the X-Men A-list. Or B-list. You are, with all due respect and affection, the Kathy Griffiths of the Marvel superhero world. Jamie wasn't even up to lifting a finger against Black Bolt in Silent War, and now you want to go a round against the guy that kicked Black Bolt's ass?

I've heard Monet has an IQ in the double, nay, triple digits. Could she not be bothered to explain in painstaking detail that you cannot stop the Hulk with witty banter and pop-culture references? No? OK, fine, whatever. I will merely submit for your consideration the Events So Far:

Beast: Oh my God, our species is nearly extinct! Even the death of a single mutant is a solemn event! ...so anyway, kids, let's all try and gangbang the biggest, baddest Hulk ever and see what happens.
New X-Men: [fighting Hulk] Yay! Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Pain. Ow.
Cyclops: OK, now the grown-ups try!
Xavier: Scott, even I think that's a dick move. Everyone, it's far too dangerous to fight the Hulk--
Cyclops: Shut up! I said, everybody fight the goddamn Hulk! Emma, help me make sure everybody fights the Hulk.
X-Men: [fighting Hulk] Ow. Ow. Ow. Ohdeargodjesusmyarms. Ow.
Kitty: This is so lame.

Think about it.

Yours sincerely, etc.

Dear Marvel:

When can I expect a Bob, Agent of HYDRA limited edition cold-cast porcelain statue? When?

I would be willing to settle for a high quality resin bust. But make it quick.

Yours with the deepest sincerity, etc.

Stallion? Neigh!

Now that I am the proud (?) owner of a gift copy of Stallion, everyone's favorite wild west English-language yaoi, I can say not only is it definitely sucky, but it's also half a book short.

You'll only realize this if you purchase the book online since there's no mention of it on the book cover, but Stallion only takes up half of its volume--the rest of the space is taken up by two other shorts from Studio KÔSEN, plus the story Cancellation of Darkness. So not only is the story basically kinda crappy, it's not even the crap you thought you were paying for. Thanks, Yaoi Press!

Anyway, Stallion is the thinly-scripted story of a trio of forgettable anorexics with rigorous depilatory regimens, whose fates and loves intertwine under the hot desert sun or something to that effect. The titular (Savage) Stallion is a generic Native American from a nameless tribe that mostly consists of an old woman in a tipi. (In the middle of a barren wasteland devoid of plant life? Well, alright, I suppose.) His purpose in this narrative is to a) be token exotic eye candy, and b) take it up the ass from various white folks such as Josey the bounty hunter, unto whom Stallion gladly renders a blow job and a portion of his own soul. Watch out for soul syphilis!

Still, the creators attempt to give Stallion some dignity. Or not. Actually, they just compare him to an animal:

Since he has a name related to horses, we wanted to give Savage Stallion some slight features from them. His eyes are a bit bigger and darker than the other characters [sic] ones. His buttocks are a bit rounder...

That's as close as you're ever going to get to character notes in this thing, so get used to it.


Anyway, opposing Josey and his white man's burden is the wispy cowboy Bill (seen above), who shares the same tragic eating disorder as his foes and draws webcomics in his spare time. Despite being about as intimidating as a hipster working the Soho Apple store, cowboy Bill still manages to ride around the desert raping our heroes until Stallion fells him with a thrown dagger between the eyes. A dagger he keeps unsheathed and tucked in the back of his modesty thong:


Yes, that makes perfect sense.

See, I've never tried to ride horses and tackle bounty hunters in the old west, much less do so with a naked blade shoved down a G-string. It is entirely possible that the practice poses no potential hazards whatsoever to the integrity of my underwear and my fulsomely rounded, horse-like buttocks. So I guess I should cut KÔSEN some slack.

I'm also willing to cut linguistic slack to the Spanish KÔSEN, who seem like a fairly likeable pair of artists for all their authorial shortcomings. But Stallion was supposedly edited by Xaviera Pallars and Yamila "Female Parts That Make You Feel Icky" Abraham, neither of whom figured out that dialogue like "They said my tits were too big for the dress" doesn't ring true to the wild west. (For what it's worth, the OED traces the slang usage of "tits" to 1928.) None of this stopped Stallion from getting four stars on Amazon, for what it's worth (not a lot). But let's face it, if you're looking for plot, characterization, and writing, what the hell are you doing reading girls' manga porn in the first place?

On the other hand, if you're bored at work and you want to see how many people will start laughing after reading the back cover copy alone, then Stallion is well worth the purchase. I highly recommend it!

Special Bonus Feature!
The last page of Stallion is an ad for Zesty!, a free shounen-ai webcomic from Yaoi Press, featuring rave reviews from the likes of... PikachuGoddess and TwilightDNA?

More manga copy I love (not really)

Via Go! Comi press release:

CY-BELIEVERS is the new series by Shioko Mizuki, creator of Go! Comi’s highly popular CROSSROAD. When Ryo’s controlling father betroths her to a lecherous upperclassman, her only hope is a club of hot computer geeks!

In A.I. REVOLUTION the daughter of a scientist finds herself surrounded on all sides by violent bishonen robots who she must teach to live — and love — like humans.

Query: does it really matter if robots must learn to live - and love - like humans? That's what humans are for. Still, people never tire of stories about the human-robot condition even though robots are really for shooting laser beams at people you dislike and transforming into jetcopters (also with lasers). You know. Useful activities.

Let's face it, anyone who invests countless research dollars and hours of manpower in designing a robot, however pretty, whose highest purpose cannot be achieved until it's ready to direct-dial my cell at 3 AM on a work night and sobbingly demand to know why I won't talk about our relationship, deserves only to be punched repeatedly in the face. Then again, people never tire of saying "I get the premise, but why would anyone breed super-intelligent sharks to cure the disease?" or "I get the premise, but why do governments continually invest in secret programs to create out-of-control psychic killing machines?" and handing over ten bucks for a ticket (or manga) anyway.

Hell, I paid to see Aeon Flux. And the return on my investment was every bit as terrible as I'd hoped.

Welcome to my dark pit of darkness, but watch out--it's dark!

Ah, the Great Lakes Avengers/Initiative/what have you. A promising idea, often executed with all the subtlety and nuance of a sledgehammer to the cranium. (Maybe I'll start buying once they get rid of the editorial commentary by the damn talking squirrel.) Yet there are still bits--this one courtesy of the Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular preview at PopCultureShock.com--that are so, so right:


It's like half the shows and comics I've seen, all compressed into one tidy panel!

This got four stars on Amazon. Four. Stars.

Orchiee Fairchild the third is an exorcist who hops through the land on his pogo stick purging demonic powers with his living marionette companion, Doodoo. Orchiee's travels brings him to Kingsgoie Lanzbarg University where he meets the beautiful student Philip Gillson, who employs him for a spiritual cleansing. A love affair brews between the two right as strange events start happening at the University. A dark force is raping and brainwashing the male students. It's up to Orchiee and Doodoo to put a stop to it.

I'm not sure, but I think this is supposed to come off as wacky and zany instead of half-assed and sorely needing a functioning proofreader. Who wrote this crappy copy? Why did they feel the need to waste space on irrelevant details like "Kingsgoie Lanzbarg"? Who thought this cluttered mess of a title logo in any way resembles a professional product worth your hard-earned cash?

Anyway, such is the wonderously amateurish pitch for OEL yaoi as brought to you by the febrile mind of Stephen Doerr, self-styled illustrator/sculptor/martial artist/janitor and author of Exorcisms and Pogo Sticks. Personal motto: In Doerr We Fart. Oh, the sparkling wit! Don't take my word for it--Sequential Tart's Kat "Lowering the Bar" Avila claims that "Doerr's fanciful character designs and humor-filled dialogue can put a silver lining in any cloudy day." Personally, I would prefer that Doerr's fanciful character designs not put the thought of Adam Warren: The Early Middle School Years in my mind, but what the hell do I know.

However, the best part, and by "best" I mean "most likely to make me question the existence of God", is that there is in fact a second volume of Exorcisms and Pogo Sticks: The man-slut Orchiee and his marionette side-kick Doodoo are back for another arcane adventure blah blah blah. As terrible as the pitch is, you can amuse yourself for at least five minutes by coming up with your own names of Doerr-esque absurdity and inserting them where appropriate:

The man-slut Glamour McDanger, Esq. and his marionette side-kick Buttpunch...
The man-slut Fheevee J. Johnson Jr...
The man-slut Wackums von Tittles-Guffaw...

Try it yourself, it's fun! Or at least, something to do while waiting for the bus.

101 Things to Do in Long Beach When You're Dead Inside

One easy way to entertain coworkers at an anime convention is to pick up the free, glossy literature lying around and read it aloud. For example, grab the ICv2 Guide to Manga, open it up to a random page, and read the following manga descriptions in your best movie trailer voice:

1. This shonen ai/yaoi manga features pure love at the judo club between a cute boy and an ideal man.

2. A male shinigami is sent to earth on a mission, but instead of a normal skeletal form in a mix-up he gets the body of a sexy catholic high school girl, whose spirit ends up in the skeleton so she has to tag along and try to keep the shinigami's dirty mitts off her nubile form.

3. So when he catches a glimpse of a beautiful stranger and her strawberry panties set against the backdrop of the setting sun, all he can think about is recreating the scene on film. Thinking she is the owner of the underwear in question, Junpei begins dating the popular and perky Tsukasa, hoping that as his girlfriend she'll be willing to appear on camera. Little does he know that shy, nerdy, bookworm Aya also owns a pair of strawberry panties...

4. A rash of unexplained deaths on the U.S. border with Mexico provides the backdrop for this OEL yaoi romance thriller. Rated 18--hey, I know that one! The art's really good for a yaoi title, too:


Frank says: I thought we agreed NO CHICKS.


Oh, Hatemonger. Your white power wuv is so twoo.