 So, I’ve come to the conclusion that I MUST be missing something. I must be because I ran across something I just purely didn't understand.
I was reading Gangland #1 from Vertigo (DC Comics). It’s a compilation of short stories. There are many different types of artwork, writing, etc. And normally, that doesn’t bother me…until I came upon what I could conceivably call the worst comic I have ever encountered. It’s called “Chains” by Peter Kuper. This is just awful all the way around. The one in this particular issue, because unfortunately there are more, is basically a picture book representation of ‘The Life of Cocaine’...or heroin, I don't know what drug it's supposed to be. Okay, I’m an adult. A REAL adult, meaning I’m well over 18 and have been for quite some time. First of all, I am offended that something so simplistic would be in a comic book that I consider to be for mature readers. Now, I understand that a comic book is a series of pictures accompanied by small portions of words to depict a story. But, I don’t expect only pictures. I am NOT four years old. Second, the artwork is just awful, in my opinion. Not only am I left with four to five pages of “follow the pictures and figure it out” but, the artwork isn’t even clear as to what is happening. Like I, an average human being, can fill in the blanks and missing pieces of the hardcore drug manufacturing and distribution depicted in this story. There is no explanation of what is going on, who anyone is. By the third page, I was just over it and wanted to get on to the next story…which had words. Also, the life of Cocaine or Heroin??? Seriously??? They thought THAT was a rock-solid comic book short idea??? Not only does that seem desperate, what they chose for said story seems like nothing more than page filler to bulk up an issue. It really turned me off on the issue too. I haven’t picked it back up since I read this comic short and it’s just sitting there…probably going to sit there for a while. I can get more out of the Sunday Funny Papers than this comic short. I mean, Family Circle was wicked better than this and I don’t know if that’s saying much. The only thing I can recommend this short for is a burn session in a fireplace. At least then it might be useful.
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 I read something very interesting over the weekend and I’ll get to that in a minute.
I watched Devil’s Rejects this weekend, which is the sequel to House of 1000 Corpses, both are Rob Zombie movies. I had never seen it because as my readers well know by now, I’m not a fan of many sequels. However, I chose to watch it anyway. It wasn’t horrible. I mean, I was entertained. But, I did miss the original and the psychotic characters. Now, apparently, Rob Zombie is looking to start shooting Devil’s Rejects 2: Three From Hell this year, possibly in March. ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? He’d better be one hell of a writer to be able to make a third movie to complete a trilogy where everyone is already dead. I will be seeing it because I have to know how Rob Zombie tries to pull this off, however, I don’t have high hopes for its success or the quality of its content. Bringing three killers back from the dead isn’t going to be very believable to me. However, it’s been thirteen years since Devil’s Rejects, maybe he’s more demented now. We’ll just have to wait and see.  Calling all fans of horror and the supernatural!!! A new movie is coming out February 1. It’s called “Winchester”. It’s based on the true story of Winchester Rifle fortune heiress, Sarah Winchester. Played by Helen Mirren, who is absolutely fantastic at playing the roles of dark, creepy, solemn matriarchs, Sarah Winchester becomes a widow and obtains great wealth after the death of her husband, William Winchester, who leaves her his fortune. This is a fortune of about $20 million which, in today’s world, equals about $500 million, give or take. This chick has money coming out her ears. And it’s going to continue to come because she owns half of the Winchester Rifle Company (Winchester Repeating Arms Company). Unfortunately, she starts to experience a number of supernatural phenomena. She becomes tormented and haunted, desperately wanting to know what all of this spiritual activity is in her house, and why. She begins to think she and her family are cursed and calls on psychic mediums to try to give her an explanation. She is informed that “the spirits” are the souls of all of the victims of the Winchester Rifle. She is also told that the only way to appease said ghosts is to move West and build a house for herself and the spirits. However, she is gravely informed that she must have building construction going on at all times in order to make these ghosts happy and for them to leave her alone. So, in 1886, just five years after the death of her husband, she moves to California, buys an eight-room farm house on 160 acres and begins construction that goes on practically non-stop for 38 years. This house has windows with views of other walls, staircases that lead nowhere (like to the ceiling or into a solid wall), there are doors that open to reveal brick walls, I mean, this house turns into a maze of craziness. Even the house staff need maps to move about the property because even THEY can’t get the layout straight, especially with all the constant work being done. (I will say that there is some difference of opinion among scholars and biographers whether or not Sarah Winchester had a fascination with the number 13. There are stories that she had thought it to be a lucky number and supposedly worked it into many facets of the house such as, there are 13 bathrooms, many windows have 13 window panes, etc. However, there are people who maintain that some of that work was done and the house was altered AFTER her death, when it was purchased and made into a tourist attraction. No, I haven’t been…yet.) It is widely believed that all the twists and turns in the house, the odd architecture and construction, was intended to confuse and confound the ghosts. A lesser known explanation for the vast property and its confounding design is simply that, because Sarah was rich and had absolutely NO architectural training whatsoever, that when she would choose what additions to make and where, due to her lack of experience and technical knowledge, it just plumb ended up a perplexing and massive structure that eventually, she didn’t even live in anymore. I love movies based on real events. This one has always fascinated me. I have been aware of the Winchester Mystery Mansion and its backstory for years. I think this is one of those spellbinding tales of fear, faith and the everlasting battle of warding of perceived evil. Can you imagine spending over $500 million spanning almost 40 years to build a house you don’t ever intend to live in? Our beliefs of what is happening around us and to us can be very influential, sometimes even debilitating. They can be so strong and so captivating that, sometimes, they can control ever aspect of our very lives. Sarah Winchester’s belief in her unseen tormentors drive her to deal with her fear and its apparent demons at their very core of existence. I truly cannot wait to see this movie. I hope it’s as good as I think it’s going to be.
Okay, so, I couldn’t believe this when I read it but, it seems to be on the up and up.
Lindsay Lohan wants to play Batgirl this year for Joss Whedon. What the eff??? Have we all forgotten ALL of the drama and legal trouble she brings to the table? Not to mention that she hasn’t looked healthy and sober (at the same time) in well over a decade. Even now, she still has a malnourished look to her. I mean, it’s the same financial risk as hiring Robert Downing Jr. except none of the payoff. Sure, at one time, it cost millions of dollars to insure an actor on set with his issues but, we get performances like Iron Man and The Soloist, etc. It’s not like Lohan is a top grade, classy actress and honestly, in my opinion, has very little staying ability based on her talent. She has incredible staying power based on her messed up personal life but, is that REALLY the image you want attached to a film that you spend a boat load of money to make. I know there are people out there, like me, who will or won’t watch certain movies solely because of who is starring in them. I can honestly say, that in all my years discussing movies with people, I have NEVER heard anyone say, “I have got to see that! Lindsay Lohan is in it! Anything she does is bound to be Oscar material!”. Yeah, NO. Lohan would be a personality that causes me to not watch ANYTHING she’s in. Even talk shows and such. She, Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus are ALL lumped together in the same kind of stereotype…and it is well deserved. The constant need for attention and the thriving on drama and chaos makes them probable poison to any project they work on. Additionally, Alicia Silverstone has openly expressed interest in reprising her role as Batgirl…15 years later. Ok, would we let Michael Keaton play Batman, NOW? Or Val Kilmer? Don’t you think at a certain point these people get too rough and tumbled looking to play these kinds of roles? I mean, how old is Batgirl supposed to be anyways? Lohan is like 31 or so and Silverstone is about 41. Isn’t Batgirl supposed to be younger than that? I don’t know. I’m not a huge fan of DC Comics. I’ll just have to wait and see what happens. My opinion though, Lindsay Lohan is a bad choice. I have often argued that Freddy is my favorite classic horror movie villain. My reasoning has always been that he is a multilayered, complex character as opposed to a regular madman just running (or walking) around killing people. Now, this being my thinking, I decided to do a little research on the biography of Fred Krueger. And I was right, there’s a tantalizing tale of terror that tortures and torments this soul from the very beginning.
I have to be honest and say that I am only very familiar with the first four movies. The rest of the movies in the series I have only seen once or some not even at all. But, that doesn’t mean I’m not a fan of this character. Just from the first four though, I was already able to determine that Freddy was purely just one messed up individual. I mean, this is truly one maniacal soul. Freddy Krueger, born Frederick Charles Krueger, had a rough childhood. He was conceived during an assault by multiple mental patients on a poor nun that got locked in with them over the holidays and adopted out right after birth. He grows up with no maternal influence and his only parental influence is the man he was turned over to, an alcoholic who abuses him and teaches him how to cut himself. He is bullied relentlessly, harms small animals and in his teen years, kills his “father” using the very razor he learned to cut himself with. (Interestingly, he also learns all of this from his “father”.) As an adult, he gets a job, gets married, has a daughter and tries to live a normal life. However, his homicidal urges cannot be suppressed and he becomes The Springwood Slasher, killing 20 children in three years, the children of his former classmates. He also kills his wife when she finds out he’s a serial killer. His daughter is sent away for adoption and given a new name. After his arrest, he is released on a technicality involving the arrest warrant and an inebriated judge. This, of course, is deemed an outrage by the parents of the town and they form a vigilante mob and take him down to the boiler room, where he tortured and mutilated his victims, and they burn him alive. Okay, so, that’s where I am going to stop on his history because THAT is what happened to him when he was alive. Everything after his death will be discussed at some point but, for now, let’s stick with the HUMAN aspect of Freddy. We’ll get to DEMON Freddy eventually. Let’s address his childhood first. Being born to a nun raped by 100 maniacs and sent away immediately after birth really does have to weigh on a child’s self-esteem. Knowing that you came from that kind of mental history has got to make you wonder at some point if you will end up like that too. It might also make a child feel like behaving badly is acceptable because “it’s in their genes” (for lack of a better term) and therefore, they can’t help it. It’s their way of justifying the bad behavior. Being abused in so many ways as a child can also having a long-lasting change effect on their personality plus mental and emotional growth and processes. Enduring the kind of violence that he experienced as a child, he could have likely been a very frustrated little boy and, subsequently, a very angry young man. The killing of his school’s classroom hamster with a hammer would be my argument showing his lack of emotional verbalization ability, his pain and frustration in feeling weak and the desire to be in control of something, the lack of any ability to regulate emotions and a severe lack of empathy. The lack of the maternal influence coupled with the type of paternal example he had, left him with no nurturing value in his life at all. He would probably not have been taught any form of love or affection, leaving him unable to identify with or develop these kinds of emotions. The self-mutilation as a child/teen would be an indicator of how he chose to deal with his emotions and how he really thought of himself as a human being. This partnered with the abusive parent would further my assumption that he has an entirely crippled self-esteem. After meeting a woman, he falls in love (as much as he can, in my opinion) and gets married and starts a family of his own. He and his wife have a little girl and for a while he’s able to wear the mask of a normal, everyday individual. He goes to work, comes home, interacts with his family…a typical person doing typical things. But, eventually, the flaws in his personality, the scars of his childhood, the anger and rage that boil so deeply within him all seep to the surface and he becomes a child molester and murderer. His ability to harm these children in such a horrific manner, treating them as if they are objects for his amusement and experimentation, in my opinion, again points to his inability to empathize. However, I don’t believe that children were Freddy’s main sexual preference. I do believe that, while this was part of his torture of the children, it was not his main focus. It’s not something that carries over into his further activities after his death. And though I believe he enjoyed his crimes, I do not believe that was the only way for him to be sexually gratified. He’s truly, generally, a killer. He taunts, mutilates and murders his victim. Sure, there are other aspects that lend themselves to complete his psychopathy. He’s definitely what I would call a narcissistic personality. Now, you might be wondering how one with such a low self-esteem, such as I’ve described, could also be a narcissist. Narcissism seems to oftentimes be a cover for feelings of inadequacy. These people can believe deep down that, if they don’t demand the constant attention and accolades, etc., people will not be around them or pay attention to them on their own. They can feel that they are not truly worthy of anything positive and therefore, force, take or manipulate to get what they want. With a history on Earth such as this, it’s no wonder demons chose him to continue his depravity in the afterlife. More to come in part 2 of this in depth look at Freddy Krueger. But for now, thanks for reading…and sweet dreams!!! I was really looking forward to one of the latest issues of Grimm Tales of Terror, volume 3 issue 10. I was. And yet, I was sadly disappointed by Zenescope for the first time. This issue was so frustrating I chose to do a quick blog post instead of a full-on review because honestly, there really just isn’t much to say.
The story is extremely hard to follow. The main character speaks like a burned-out hippie with a fractured thought process. It’s very difficult to understand what he’s saying and while I can clearly gather that that was, in fact, the goal, I do think it went a little too far. I mean, I know some very cool people with VERY fractured thought processes (for whatever reasons) and THEY are easier to follow than this character. I even read this stuff twice, three times on some pages, and I promise you, it’s some of the most inconsistent, fragmented thinking. The way the frames are arranged and what is presented in them makes it a lot of work to read this issue. Frankly, so much of all the components of this issue seemed very repetitive. It started out strange, progressed to annoying, then it became frustrating. I read comic books to relax and for entertainment. I don’t expect or want it to be some sort of jumbled code that I have to decipher. I might as well read a novel in French if I want to have to translate something. Even worse, it left me afraid to pick up issue 11. Hopefully, that will be the redemption issue. Although, the cover isn’t the normal style so, it does leave me a little worried. We’ll see what happens. I’ll let you know.
So, I was watching TV and The Equalizer with Denzel Washington came on. And I started thinking about all the people I know that think it’s a horrible movie. I can’t understand that. It’s your classic one man killing machine show. I mean, come on. It’s about a guy who works at a home store and “somehow” knows how to kill people and whoop their ass in about fifty billion different ways. There’s really not a lot else you can expect out of that kind of plot except some crazy creative deaths and maybe some explosions. Which we get. Now, I’ll admit it takes this movie a bit to get going but, this guy really is something else. He's obviously ex-CIA or Special Forces or with the Teams or something because he has contacts from the Agency and Washington. This is a highly trained professional killer. And he can do it anywhere. He can kill in a restaurant with a book, in an office with two cork screws and a shot glass, in the home store with all kinds of stuff. I mean, just watching him methodically and almost robotically destroy people is freakin’ awesome. And it’s not like he’s a bad guy. He’s a good guy. He’s got good morals, a higher sense of right and wrong, and wants to afford the opportunity for redemption. He just seems like such a fantastic killing machine and yet he is so completely human it’s almost hard to reconcile the two together. Honestly, this character would have made a great comic book, in my opinion. A high moral man traveling the world, snuffing out injustice and crime, leaving death and destruction in his wake, all the while, helping the lost, forgotten and destitute. Hmmm. Maybe it is already a comic book. I’ll have to look into that. I’ll let you guys know what I find out.
 Well, for all of you who don’t buy comic books as though life itself hangs in the balance, today was New Comic Book Day (NCBD). I have to admit, I went crazy today. I don’t always get to the comic book store on a weekly basis because it’s a little far away, so I have to consolidate my visits. I actually have a store near me that sells used back issues so I do visit there a bit. They sell new issues too but, the selection is limited…mostly mainstream stuff. And obviously, some of the stuff I like is from smaller publishers and more obscure (like the White comic book). I first went to the used comic book store, Vintage Stock. This is a cool store. They’ve got movies, games, comic books, all for super cheap. So, I spent about an hour going through back issues at $1 each. I finally chose 27 issues for $27. I found some old Judge Dredd, a CSI comic book (I love true crime and crime drama), and a bunch of other stuff I had no idea existed. Then, I went to my actual comic book store. The guys there are super nice and super cool. The owner is a really cool guy and these guys know me by name (some know my voice) and it’s just the best customer service. They had my pulls (the issues they pull automatically for me) and it was a lot. Multiple Punisher issues, Grimm Tales of Terror, The Shadow, The Shadow/Batman and more. Now, every time I buy new comic books, when I get home I enter them into my collection on my Comics Price Guide account. This is particularly useful for knowing what exactly you have in your collection AND the value of it. So, I’m entering my books and calculating my profit and it turns out, I made a $52 profit on the used comic books today. This batch was worth $79 and I only paid $27. Score!!! So, not only did I make money from spending money and build my investment, I got a lot of new stuff for reviews. All in all, a winning day.  |
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February 2024
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