Rain obscures without lying, and also makes things soppy wet

You can now subscribe to Avril Lavigne's Make 5 Wishes (A Tribe Called Quest) on iTunes as a free download. Or hop over to make5wishes.com, an official site that resembles the free-hosted fan website of a clueless teenage girl. Right down to the Google ads and disregard for attractive web design!

You can even "Sign Up" there. For what, it doesn't say. Perhaps a demon-ridden box that can only be dispelled by the imaginary musician friend of your choice. Perhaps junk email from Nettwerk.com.


Sorry for the forthcoming spam, flintstone@yabbadabba.com. But it was in the name of research.

Avril Lavigne's Make 5 Wishes (A Pimp Named Slickback) episodes aren't a terrible concept when viewed in something akin to the intended format. Print can be unkind to Camilla D'Errico's art, here verging on the amateur webcomic level--rubbery bodies, faces that don't look their age, generic backgrounds--but seen one panel at a time, it's oddly appropriate.

Likewise, it's not Joshua Dysart's best and his rain-based metaphors need work (okay, a lot of his metaphors probably need work), but it's an emo parade for an emo age group. And the story, such as it is, does pick up once the happy wish-granting demon appears and the reader is no longer trapped alone with protagonist Hana's endless angst. Hey, Hana! Maybe the futility of life isn't the reason you don't have real friends. Maybe you don't have real friends because you suck.

Until Hana learns a Valuable Life Lesson, tune in to Episode 4 for the unintentionally amusing bit where Hana rags on an old jazz guitarist because jazz music is dumb and slow. Old music suxxorz compared to Avril Lavigne! Yes, a scene so pathetic that even Imaginary Avril Lavigne is embarassed to be part of it. And Imaginary Avril's embarassment is understandable; a manga where her biggest fan is a delusional, mopey little muffin who doesn't know shit about music... just doesn't seem like a particularly effective sell for the brand, no?

Rumble in the Barracks

Avengers: The Initiative.

Set in Stamford, Connecticut...


...but filmed on location in Vancouver.


(Avengers: The Initiative #1 scans from IGN and scans_daily user Flidgetjerome.)

Now where's my manga Book of Mormon?

Siku's The Manga Bible is not the only manga Bible around, but to our knowledge there is no illustrated testament that kicks more graphic ass. (At least until until Rob Liefeld gets around to The Bible Reborn guest-starring Youngblood and Avengelyne; maybe Jesus can start by healing anorexic steroid freaks.)

Siku certainly has a dynamic style (like Exalted meets, well, the Exalted), but that's not even what makes The Manga Bible truly hardcore. Because there are two versions currently available: the NT Raw or the NT Extreme.


Now that's extreme!

New York is totally different from the Big Apple

Anime Expo is sometimes derided as having become an industry event, but here comes Reed Exhibitions to show fans what "industry" really means: enter the New York Anime Festival at the Jacob Javits Center this December. Says breathless show manager John McGeary in the press release: "New York finally has an anime event of its own!"

Yes. Because there's never been a recurring anime event, much less one organized by industry, in New York City, with "Anime" and "Fest" in its name. Ever.

Given the NYAF's organization and backing, it seems unlikely that it'll meet the same swift fate as its predecessors (if it had any, which it totally doesn't). The sponsor list should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with New York Comic Con and the American Anime Awards, either--hello, ADV!

With a day dedicated to the trade and Artist Alley prices of $350 a table, it's a far cry from anime conventions as "FANS/Consumers" know them. It's not exactly the death knell of said conventions, which offer some experiences that consumer/trade shows can't and vice versa, but it'll be interesting indeed to see if this signals the start of any larger changes on the anime event scene...

Robots in disguise. Really, really lame disguise.

Transformers come in all kinds of impressive shapes and sizes, from planet-munching monstrosities to predatory tape cassettes. But truly, nothing we've seen so far can compare to the power of this latest concept, by way of Fantofan.jp:

Transformers that transform into shoes! Er. Well, into left shoe, anyway. Megatron and Convoy even keep their sporty kicks in robot mode. (No word on whether small, sad, underpaid Indonesian Mini-Cons were enlisted to complete this process.)

Autobots, transform and... pathetically hop... out!

30 silver pieces for the one who delivers...

Rob Liefeld presents: The Godyssey!



Whether you smoke it or sniff it, there is no finer comic crack in the universe than Rob Liefeld (and his epilepsy-inducing, Rottweiler-designed website). Transformers jailbait hentacle porn comes close to evoking the sheer suspension of sanity and disbelief necessary to embrace the Liefeld, but there is no comparison to the master. This is the man who, whether directly or through his publishing ventures, egged on some of the greatest sequential art of our time.

It is in the area of Biblical crack where Liefeld's abilities truly shine; The Godyssey scans have been kicking around the Internet for years, but did you know you too could easily own a copy of Avengelyne/Glory: The Godyssey? (There's a copy up on sale at eBay through March 14th, too. Buy it now for 95 cents plus shipping and handling!) Alas, the Jesus content is cut short of favor of Avengelyne, a fallen angel who kicks ass in the name of the Lord, with an occasional assist from the angel of death: Passover.

Yeah. Did you know Maximum Press gave Passover his own book? Because they did. Featuring "a tongue-in-cheek cameo appearance by Gene Simmons"!

Oh, and Liefeld et al are planning a new faith-based comic label to debut this year. Hooray!

One of these things is not like the other

Although Black History Month has ended, perhaps it should be extended for a few days to bring a much-needed ray of reality into the lives of juvie anime fans everywhere.

Sayeth the 4Kids fangirls of Save Our Voice Actors:

I found the absolute best quote for SOVA. I'm going to be putting this all over my banners!

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

....I'm making a shirt with this on it.

Yeah. Uh. Kids. You know what Dr. King was talking about? Because somehow I don't think it was--

Wow, that is a perfect quote for SOVA... We definitely need to use it!!

Seriously, I really don't think he was thinking on the level of cart--

I agree!! It's a very SOVA-y quote!! I love it!

Oh, fuck it. Yes, chilluns, the civil rights movement and the recasting of a cartoon have exactly the same moral, social, political, and historical weight. Uh-huh. You go with that.

But is SOVA the goofball-poppingest fan campaign yet to see the light of day? I'm betting "no way"--somewhere out there, the race to the bottom surely continues.

I laughed, I cried, I hit reset after the final boss wiped out my party

Via Kotaku link comes an arty Insert Credit article on why video games are not Art and most likely will never be, as well as a few kind words for intentionally punishing games:

They shine. Not for the enjoyment they provide, you see, but for the enjoyment they don't provide. They are the Art that games aren't. They are selfish objects, wringing a terrible revenge from a subculture that deserves to be punished. When you strip the fun away, you see Gaming for the bony white husk that it is . . . sad masses of cells tapping plastic in the dark, wondering where all the loneliness and depression are coming from.

Back at Kotaku, one can already hear some shrill squeals of "Gaming has no Citizen Kane? What about Mario? What about Metal Gear Solid, fer chrissakes! Games touch me in a way movies never have!"

Feel free to raise your own opinion on this one; this coordination-challenged sad mass of cells is at least grateful it doesn't have to shoot down a squad of mooks and an attack helicopter on a rooftop just to find out how Citizen Kane ends. There is a great deal of unfinished and unfinishable "Art" sitting around the house...

Chrono Crusade Vol. 8

There's really not much you can do to ruin gun-toting nuns in 1920s America; that is what is known in the industry as Pure Entertainment Gold. Okay, you could take all those possibilities and flush them down the toilet in favor of your standard emo apocalypse saga with predictable religious overtones, but - oh yes, the concluding volume of the Chrono Crusade manga.

First things first: Chrono Crusade Vol. 8 is as beautifully drawn as always. The characters don't break any new ground but Rosette, although a generic spunky heroine, is at least a generic spunky heroine who kicks people in the head and bought up her Both Guns Blazing schtick, and Father RemingtonAwesome is Father Awesome, so they're all perfectly pleasant to watch. Of course, this being the final volume, all there is to watch is expertly-rendered scenes of battle damage and heart-rending emotion you've seen a hundred times before.

The plot is entirely optional at this point: people cry and shout a lot about their issues before kicking each other in the head, there's the obligatory scene where the Main Character is KOed during a crucial battle and must mope through a metaphysical experience (on a train, no less) before returning to consciousness to whup villain ass, childhood promises are remembered and new promises made (and cried and shouted over), naked women of significance are awakened and then decapitated, disaster is threatened and averted, and climactic battle scenes suddenly cut to black. Can we get a spaceship that crashes onto a planet and causes wacky shit to be set in motion, too? Yes, we can. Cue epilogue!

The epilogue is standard sentimental fare, but it's a decent enough send-off for all the heroes you mostly tolerated or kinda liked for the past 7 volumes. And that's about it, really. Still, it's a really well-drawn series and Father Awesome has a big-ass cross sword, so the early volumes are at least worth a read. Meanwhile, Daisuke Moriyama's moved on to World Embryo.

On the technical side, ADV's translation is competent enough. But design-wise, there are just some situations in which a Helvetica-style font simply looks crappy on the page. Which is too bad, because people at ADV Manga apparently loves them some cheap-looking sans serif action.

Sparkles, people, sparkles

If the subject is cool girl-girl love, then why is your book design so purposely amateurish and unappealing?

Maybe yuri fans have a zest for shades of dull off-mauve. Is this something I should be aware of?