After eighteen months and twenty pages and I have ended our collaboration on Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies. It's unlikely you will ever see a comic book from us. In the future you'll see cartoons from Jon but it's questionable if I'll play a role.

The website's being updated: [link]
This guy's designing it: [link]

You may see a collaborative story between myself, and .
You may see a Fallout 3 mod from and Jon's brother Mike (think Manhunt but funny).

Fingers crossed.

Watching Christian Bale blow up something unmotivated couldn't sum up the future better. Every single film this year save for Sam Raimi's ambush back to Horror have been god awful. Batman is dead and in his stead are out-and-out sociopaths. The Joker ultimately wins. And all the heroes disappear... Virtue is overrated I guess.

I could write about finishing school. I could write about the near falling out I've had with friends. I could write about my deadline to finish the first book of Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies. I could write about my friend getting assaulted in a Burger King drive-through on his lunch break. I could write about tearing down my fence and bleaching my patio.

But I won't. No point. Not in a landscape this bleak and streamlined. I've said it before, I just wish I weren't right.

just showed me several lines and color tests yesterday. Our Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies comic has officially begun. I'm very excited and will post pics asap.

Do you ever run into a particular acquaintance repeatedly? I had abnormal psych with a girl last year and we keep showing up at random places. When it happens we laugh.

The problem with Coraline, and Neil Gaiman in general, is that someone already did it better a decade ago. Clive Barker's The Thief of Always was from a mind still in it's dangerous prime while Neil can't ever seem to find his fangs. The greater the capacity for cruelty & knowledge the greater the imagination. And isn't imagination what we respect? But unfortunately even Gaiman's work on the Hellraiser comics don't carry an iota of maliciousness. He's just arrived late to the party to help Grant Morrison kill Bruce Wayne but it's all incredibly derivative. When sales hit a slump in the early nineties they killed Superman and put Azrael in the bat suit only to ret-con (return continuity) the following year. Yes, the idea of Deathstroke filling the cowl with Harley Quinn as Robin is a post-modernist fanboy hard-on... But little more than that. We're not at a feeling level in comics yet. Nor are we actively pursuing the future Moores and Millers of the medium. Should we really expect anything less than a re-run of the last fifteen years?

What throws me for a loop though: Kevin Smith can write. The same man who weaseled his way into the Weinstein's pockets to be supplied an untalented film career is one of the only four people that should be writing Batman right now. Bar-none he's the only man working right now that can write The Joker (even upstaging veteran Denny O'Neill and Jonah Nolan's serious incarnations). Why? Because Smith doesn't forget that The Joker is fucking funny. Psychotic and scary, yes; but also brilliantly ironic. One would think Joker an easy character to write but they'd be surprised at how many times he's been done wrong. Ledger and Smith have been the only two to perfectly define the character for this generation. In their scope he's both foot soldier and satirist for a brutal, inevitable future. And I'd have it no other way.

Why can't Jason have the good grace to stay dead? Saw and Hostel killed Horror film so this must be a case of the head living separately from the body. He can run, shoot, trap and play dress up to his heart's content but if he's still whining about mommy while murdering half-naked twenty-somethings it's the same old shit. Why not bring in environmental issues when developers attempt to tear down the camp? Perhaps shed light on his nigh invulnerability by exploring the curse aspect and sacredness of death? The audience is (or at least should be) far too intelligent for this tripe. Never will I deem a formulaic reboot anything but a shameful failure when it had eleven entries to get it right.

I am indeed working on my own Batman comic titled, "Joke's On You!", a penultimate Joker story to combat the rash of bad ones. If BSNZ takes off and DC wants me to do a Tim Kring and fuck up Batman I'll submit this and my Croc story, "Gently Smiling Jaws." and I are also co-writing "Winter Shadows" which updates Freeze, Riddler and the moral question of Gotham vigilantism.

My outlets are few and far between so having a journal on an art site is fun. I won't post on MySpace. In general I don't like any community that talks alot without saying anything. So when I get a response from someone with half-a-brain I get a kick out of it. To those that replied or enjoyed my last post about comic book bad guys, thank you very much. So for completist sake I present...

WHO SHOULD HAVE MADE IT:

DOCTOR MANHATTAN
In all regard he's a symbol of nuclear and corruptible power, but it's only in the film adaptation that Jon becomes scary. Without a moments hesitation he'd coolly detonate every armament on the planet, murder his fellow comrades and logically explain himself afterwards. In the graphic novel Manhattan is more a confused contagonist than evil Superman; and it's for this reason that Jon was excluded.

MR. FREEZE
What exists of the character is relatively new. Conceived as Dr. Zero, an unremarkable Captain Cold knock-off, he only became great when Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and writer Paul Dini updated the character for the Batman animated series. A doctor of cryogenics bound to save his wife from terminal illness succumbs to a typical super-science mishap that renders him a biological walking winter. More machine than man he quests in vain to save his wife from death. The best kind of sympathetic villain but not at all malicious. Having a character that resembles The Terminator in the same gallery of rogues as the very human Two-Face, Joker and Scarecrow also limits his credibility. When someone modernizes him yet again as a vicious and emotionally cold political assassin with a nitrogen bullet m.o. I'll really have a character I enjoy.

KILLER CROC
Rejected for the same reasons as above: he's essentially a rampaging dinosaur. There are the seeds of a great character being the only cannibal in Arkham but a poor choice in his inhuman portrayal. It's never been appearance that makes Batman villains monstrous. Make him a 6'5" bald psychopath with body-modded scales and sharpened teeth who cries while eating people and you'll have a remarkably disturbing incarnation of an Ug-Smash character.




It seems like we're all on a quest for what's next, trying to be courteous to everyone, but never questioning our reasoning for it. "YAAAY! Sublimating my feelings positions me on a structure of power-based social hierarchy! But why am I crying?!" Global warming seems like progress by comparison. A resolution to a species who considers it's greatest achievements Fundamentalism and mass-production. We've been robbed from Wall Street on down and all politicians can muster is, "Keep your 'change.'" If only someone started terrorizing these white-collar criminals...

Enter Bill Gates. Having planned to lecture during a science convention instead (his mid-life crisis in full-swing) he released a swarm of mosquitoes on his colleagues. Though he didn't giggle maniacally while jizzing in his pants (like we all would have done) he calmly read statistics about malaria deaths in Africa. This only cements the fact that if you're a rich American nothing is illegal or immoral.

An American woman in her twenties gave birth to a literal litter and ended up on the Today show. In Belgium a kid chopped up an orphanage wearing white makeup and blacked-out eyes. Nothing. Crazy fucks I tell you move to the United States! In our sad little auction kingdom anything's possible and everyone's prey!

When I dream I see photo booths that procure items of lost nostalgia and testaments of character. When all those machines disappear will we still be the same?

I always say, "Start with a villain and work backwards." So I submit to you, dear reader, my list of top ten best comic book villains.

10) THE HELLFIRE CLUB
Unlike Magneto's Brotherhood this group of cruel aristocratic mutants aren't so noble. Welcome to the Inner Circle. It's social structure lead by Sebastian Shaw, the Black King, is designed around the tenets of chess. With members serving as corporate CEOs they hold the global economy in check. As chief engineers of Sentinel program "Project Wideawake" and the transformation of Jean Gray into Dark Phoenix they move to rule the world. There's enough skeletons in this incestuous organization's closet to make Jimmy Hoffa cry. Vice isn't limited to the ordinary. Because even among the super powered the only thing better than getting what you want, is more.

9) RA'S AL GHUL
Nobody deems man a blight on the earth more than the self-proclaimed "Demon's Head." Once a physician who'd discovered the veritable fountain of youth twisted after the murder of his wife by an Arabian prince. Leading a coup to the palace they razed everything to the ground. Those that followed him that day became known as the League of Assassins, Demon's Fang, right hand of the ruthless international terrorism syndicate The Demon. Nearly eight hundred years old with super intelligence, innumerable resources and unparalleled combat skill he challenged "the world's greatest detective." Finding him a more than worthy adversary he offered Batman his criminal empire and his daughter's hand in marriage. Bruce finally saw everything he'd ever lost return to him. Family. Love. And a future he had toiled night after night for in vain: a world without crime. And with this offer he declined. Ra's was devastated. Enraged he launched an unprecedented assault to restore the earth's balance beginning with elite fascist Wayne and his beloved Gotham City. Plagues. Murder. Mind games. Bruce has forsaken Ra's peace and to his undying breath he'll return the favor. Unlike other villains driven by self-interest al Ghul fights for mother earth. He'd give his life for her... But also everyone elses.

8) DARKSEID
A warlord hailing from a medieval dungeoneer world seemingly designed by the Marquis De Sade. Conflict is all this gravelly-faced tyrant knows. So much so it coaxes him to find the Anti-Life Equation, a formula for nihilistic mind control, powerful enough to enslave all sentient races. With an assembly of torturers, assassins, disfigured personal Valkyrie called Furies and a chief brainwasher in the guise of an elderly she-male dubbed Granny Goodness, his army of Apokolips is one of the most formidable adversaries in the universe.

7) MOJO
Society can be the greatest villain of all. Descended from a race of invertebrate alien slugs (or Spineless Ones) his world was tormented by a constant barrage of electronic transmissions from a distant Earth. Every television/radio/internet pulse infected and split their psyche pulling their planet apart. Until Mojo: a genius scientist and engineer, made sense of the whole mess. Exoskeletons or motorized walkers were built for transportation. Humanoid clones were genetically manufactured based on the likeness of the "demons" in their frequency consumed nightmares. And finally their society was established around an enormous influx of anti-transmissions, native television/radio/internet programming, to counteract the ones from Earth. The Spineless Ones could dream again. So grateful were they to Mojo they let him rule their media ravaged planet like an emperor. Mojo World of the Mojoverse lit up like a billion Vegas' and opened for business 24-7. The humanoid slave race performed admirably but the ever ingenious Mojo desired more variety in his Friday night line-up. Their trade broadened to other worlds until one day the source of the transmission was discovered. Now the fun could REALLY begin! Seeing Earth's inhabitants as both kindred spirits and detestable enemies Mojo has made a habit of stealing only the best of their planet for the spotlight. Heroes and villains alike have been thrown center stage into his veritable youtube homeworld and it shows no signs of stopping. Now that's entertainment!

6) DOCTOR DOOM
An exquisite abomination of mad science & arcane sorcery. Though Victor Von Doom's tyranny would grow to plague the world ironically it's his arrogance that foils him time and again. His life really began in the explosion at Stark Industries energy lab. Warned by colleague Reed Richards to reassess his revolutionary but unstable Cross-Dimensional Pathway Victor stubbornly proceeded. The device exploded in his face. Doom, more humiliated than hurt, stole his remaining experimental devices and fled to Tibet. There he exerted power over a lost group of monks who constructed the metal suit all would come to know him by. After conquering his home province of Latveria and brutally murdering The Fantastic 4 he set his ambitious megalomania on the rest of the world. Harboring a deep grudge against Stark Industries he would spend the rest of his life seeking Ironman's downfall. An enemy to everyone, including himself.

5) BRAINIAC
A perfect machine. It's The Thing From Another World meets The Terminator with a pure goal: knowledge. Roving from planet to planet and assimilating organic life it wills only to archive and understand the universe at any cost. With a multitude of machines sharing it's mind it can be smaller than a flea or bigger than a planet. Brainiac's been known to mechanize people, alter time or perception and exhibits curious hiving behavior. Sentinels, Brood, even Galactus cannot compare.

4) SCARECROW
Master of fear. Self-made boogieman. Dr. Jonathon Crane wraps himself in a horrifying exterior to mask his own lingering neuroses. A lanky, tall introvert with a penchant for worn clothes his peers aptly dub him "scarecrow". Crane's experiments in fear begin early on chasing birds as a child and later exposing classmates to hallucinogens as an adolescent (which incidentally kill two in a car crash). Becoming a psychology professor with a specialization in phobias his classroom became a playground for experimentation. A key component to the trials was examining and overcoming the irrational. One particular incident however left a student badly injured after she viciously lashed out at herself. With an impending lawsuit against both the university and Crane his job was terminated. The doctor snapped. Dressed as a scarecrow and armed with a scythe and powerful hallucinogenic powder his vengeance was visited on both the dean and the student's families in one night. The attack left some dead from heart attacks or with minor brain damage. Others had chewed off their tongues or blinded themselves. The student's family dog had been decapitated and set on fire. Finally on the wall he'd written, "Fear not, for I have redeemed you." It took days for the survivors to recover from what the papers boldly called, "Fear Toxin Attacks." Apprehended by Batman after a failed attempt to gas the Gotham metro, he was brought to Arkham and diagnosed as a longtime untreated paranoid schizophrenic. Before the medication regimen began he complained the other inmates teased him at night with the phrase, "Scarecrow." Through Arkham's "revolving door policy" it's guaranteed Crane's terror tactics will continue. But unlike some, he truly belongs there.

3) CARNAGE
What would happen if a nice, clean-cut American male like Ted Bundy bonded with an alien parasite? Trouble. While his counterpart Venom remains an anti-hero Cletus Kassidy is just plain bad. Having murdered his parents as a youth Cletus was confined for most of his adolescence; but before you could say bolshy yarbles he was a criminally refined adult and free for alot of the ol' ultra-violence. Spider-Man would put an end to Kassidy's murder spree... At least until Eddie Brock. In a cell with the human component to Venom the symbiote once again returned. This time however it reproduced and attached to another host to the marrow: Cletus. With the ability to take any shape (including mimicking others), form a limitless amount of detachable stabbing weapons and adhere to any surface the newly-born Carnage became a regular New York terror. But the light that burns brightest also burns half as long. After numerous collective campaigns were successful in thwarting Carnage he finally got his comeuppance torn to pieces and immolated in the vacuum of space. Overkill: just like he would have wanted.

2) SINISTER
The quintessential Faustian fiend; to Dr. Nathaniel Essex genetic evolution is the future of mankind and sacrifices must be made to further it. Bestowed with the ability to decode and partially control molecular structure his first attempt to create a "super being" like himself was on his unborn son. Sensing the child would be merely human he aborted the "experiment" causing the infant to become stillborn. Publishing his theories alongside colleague Charles Darwin he too was dismissed as a radical quack until a benefactor with similar ideals introduced himself. Apocalypse. Magnifying Essex's powers ten-fold he now has the ability to shape himself and the human animal as he sees fit. He is a man remorseless, driven and absolved by science. Logically he explained this and the molecular "imperfection" of their first child to his horrified, twice pregnant wife. Moments before dying in childbirth she appropriately dubbed him, "Sinister."

1) THE JOKER
King crazy. Harlequin of hate. This criminal clown isn't just DC's premiere rogue he's easily the greatest super villain ever made. Wherever murder & rape flow freely Joker will always be there to cheer on the worst in us with shrieking laughter. The character's been killed so many times it's suspect if he's even human or more like some evil spirit that roams from person to person seeking despair and chaos. At the core his style hasn't changed: clown makeup, purple suit and psychotic ironic showmanship. Homicide to The Joker is a musical number & fireworks display with all society as his audience; his very nature is there to make humanity an unwitting criminal accomplice. But what's most frightening about the character is that for all his mad jabbering he might actually be right about us. There's an intellect, charm and bizarre code of honor that suggest a man who could've once been heroic but having seen humanity's true potential, went the other way. Joker sees a future where every man, woman and child are sociopaths. Truly ahead of the curve and nearly impossible to stamp out entirely his presence provides the penultimate answer to, "Where does evil come from?"


WHY THEY DIDN'T MAKE IT:

APOCALYPSE
And I thought Superman was overpowered! The oldest living mutant able to grow the size of Godzilla, vaporize cities with a flick of his wrist, dictate the space-time continuum, trick-out mutants into tanks, etc, etc, etc. What WAS this guy's original ability?! There's too powerful and flat-out ridiculous and even Galactus is shaking his head at this guy.

THANOS
See above.

RED SKULL
He's a nazi... And? Beyond the troglodyte MAD magazine caricature he's a pure pulp villain with equally stale motives. "Good lord, Bucky! That fiend intends to crash the Death Dust-filled blimp into the capital!"

GREEN GOBLIN
An everyday mad scientist ingests patented Hyde serum and develops a terrible case of bipolar camp. He looks cool but peel back that mask and it's an ending to a Depalma film.

SINESTRO
Snidely Whiplash: wily faggot. "Be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm hunting Wanterns. Eheheheheh."

SABERTOOTH
A generic Ug-Smash, albeit a very stylish one.

DOOMSDAY
See above.

MAGNETO
What's so evil about Magnus? He's Malcolm X and a nuclear magnet. If Xavier weren't so idealistically naive he'd have put up the money for this guy's presidential campaign years ago.

VENOM
At first villainous, but more often a karmic bitch slap for diluted, walking disaster area Peter Parker. With all the evil out of his system Brock would go on to show the world at large what Spidey should have been all along: an uncompromising badass. After Eddie died of cancer (symbiotes come with a cost) it attached itself to former Scorpion McGargan where it would live on as a soldier of fortune and moonlight vigilante.

LEX LUTHOR
This bald Superman arch-foe has been a scientist, CEO and president only to hide that he's really just a bigot. He's a plain and very mortal douchebag that would've been snuffed out ages ago were he not Superman's very first villain. Intelligence is only superior til someone spits through your head.

BLACK ADAM
When your foe's secret identity is eight-years-old should you really be proud of yourself?

MORLUN
A spider sucker... Nobody even bought this character a drink.

GALACTUS
A billion-stories tall pink & purple humanoid robot with a castle on his head. FUCK yeah! He's on an interstellar high with a wicked case of the munchies and your planet looks mighty appetizing. But where does the villain part come in?

SOLOMON GRUNDY
As much as I adore the king of zombies you have to admit there isn't an iota of real animosity in his swamp-soaked bones. He's a big lumbering child rather than a brutish deviant.

VANDAL SAVAGE
What motivates someone with eternal life to do evil? Conveyed either as a conquering barbarian or Bond villain, time and time again the question remains unanswered. Sympathetic only when he outlives the human race but an adventure novel run-off prior to that.

LOKI
More irritating than malicious, his driving motivation is "I WANNA BE THE FAVORITE!" A foe from a time when superheroes preached oral hygiene and the worst a villain could do was turn you into a farm animal.

KINGPIN
Tony Soprano sumo wrestler. Besides his wealth and tenacity he's just another crime lord. All business and tissue dismantle equally.

CASSANDRA NOVA
A telepathic boogedy-man hate machine of invincible and invisible proportion and might. File under "WTF".

SHADOW KING
See above.

BULLSEYE
Colin Farrel.