Comics

Random posts combine!

Every so often a collection of things I need to say, otherwise too bitty to put in individual posts, will combine together to form a Voltron-esque combined post. This is such a day.

Okay, first order of business…

The Hangman’s Daughter

As many of you know, I finished serialising my novel, The Hangman’s Daughter last month. Big thanks to all of you who read, commented and gave advice and encouragement. I especially want to give a shout out to Sr. Honkengoose and maxy44 who I’m pretty sure commented on every single chapter and gave me tons of good notes. Legends both. Many of you have been asking when you might be seeing more and after giving it a lot of thought I’ve decided that I’m going to start posting chapters of the second novel in the series, The Devil’s Heir.

However, there is a catch.

As I’ve already mentioned before, The Devil’s Heir is not actually finished yet. Worse, it’s still the sequel to an older draft of The Hangman’s Daughter (one where, amongst other things, Mariana was a dude). This means each chapter will have to be revised and edited so that it’s consistent with the most recent draft of HD, and I don’t have time to do that right now because my life has become an endless looping reel that goes worktoddlerblogplaycomicsleeeeeepworktoddlerblogplaycomicsleeeeeeep. So my brother Eamonn has very, very kindly agreed to edit the Devil’s Heir to get it more in line with the story so far and occasionally make changes that he feels improve the material.

“…and then they all died and the rugged, dashing, one-eyed Mouse was king of the universe. The End.”

So, starting soonish, there will be a new chapter of the Devil’s Heir going up every month. Yes. Month.

“Hey I gotta life too, y’know.”

Moving on!

Age of Ultron

So Avengers 2 is being released in Europe around a week earlier than it is in the States due to…I dunno, the collapse of American hegemony or whatever. Being the massive nerds we are, my wife and I will be at the midnight screening on 23 April and I’ll be posting a review later in the day. This won’t be a full length Unshaved Mouse style review, obviously. Just a few paragraphs about my thoughts on the film and whether I thought it was any cop or not. You know…a review like actual critics do.

And lastly, revenge

So regular readers will know that I recently learned my entire life has been a charade orchestrated by the diabolical warlock known to the world as Walter Elias Disney. You may recall I swore a blood oath of vengeance against Disney, promising to review the very, very worst movie that bears his name. And I need your help to do it. Sound off in the comments, what is the very, very, worst Disney movie that has ever been released and help me stick it to Walt but good.

See you all on the 14^th of May for How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Train my Dragon. Mouse out.

Patron Saints of America (Mouse wrote a movie! Apparently…)

Back in college I wrote a play called Patron Saints of America which holds a unique position as being the oldest thing I’ve written for stage that I can now look back on and not shudder. In hindsight, while I don’t think it’s perfect by any stretch, it’s probably the first thing that I wrote that reads like something I’d write today. It’s where I think I found my voice, I guess you could say (prior to this I was just making exaggerated hand gestures). Now, that play was directed by two friends of mine Finbarr Doyle and Jimmy McNulty.

He is probably the only person on earth who hates The Wire for that very reason.

Who is probably the only person on earth who hates The Wire.

Not too long ago, Jimmy and another friend of mine, Keith Thompsons (who played the character of Bruce onstage) arrived at my house to tell me that, as a birthday present to me, they actually went and turned Patron Saints of America into a short film that they managed to shoot in one night. I know, right? Happy birthday, here is a motion picture.

Now, while I’m obviously biased, I think this turned out kind of amazing. The movie’s below, let me know what you think.

The Unmitigated Gall

Alright, you’re all probably wondering why there’s going to be such a long break between now and the next review. So I thought I’d do what I usually do in these situations; hold a hypothetical conversation with a mysterious person who only speaks in boldface.

Hey Mouse, why you no review long time?

Good, if rather ungrammatically worded, question MPWOSIB.

To answer that I need to explain something about me.

If the only information you were provided about me was a list of what I eat in a given week, you would conclude the following: This person is not merely fat. He is SO fat that he can neither lift his arms nor fit in a bathtub, meaning that the only way he can bathe is to get the elephants in the carnival that he tours with as an attraction to stand in a circle around him and douse him with their trunks. The delivery guys know me by name, sight and scent. You name it, I have had it delivered to my door; Chinese Food, Pizza, Fish and Chips, this new restaurant down the road that just brings a barrel of lard to your house and pumps it straight into your stomach…

But, oddly enough, I’m pretty much at my ideal weight for a male of my age and height and have been for pretty much all my adult life. For whatever reason, I kinda just don’t put on weight and you hate me now and that’s good.

“Hate keeps a man alive.”

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The fault in our shades

I have this idea for a non-fiction book that I may write sometime, tentatively called Everything I know about God I learned from Comic Books. It would be a look at how the history of superhero comics so often parallels that of the major world religions, like how issues of canonicity are decided (The First Council of Nicaea/Crisis on Infinite Earths), how older belief systems get incorporated into newer ones (Celtic deities becoming saints in Gaelic Christianity/ Captain Marvel becoming part of DC continuity), the violent schisms that can erupt between adherents of different sects (the Crusades/Cassandra Cain versus Stephanie Browne) and how they deal with the Problem of Evil/Frank Millar. I bring this up because, oddly, one of the best and simplest pieces of moral advice I ever received was from a comic book. It was an issue of X-Men where Bishop, a mutant cop from the future, almost kills the man who murdered his sister before realising that he can’t cross that line and simply arrests him. Bishop is tormented by guilt over what he almost did and Charles Xavier gives him this line (as near as I can remember it, it’s been years): “It is not our thoughts that mark us, but our deeds.”

This, I think, is a very important moral. We cannot control our thoughts, our desires, our prejudices or our emotions. And, take it from the guy with the Catholic upbringing, trying to is a real good way to go nuts. In fact, if you ever find yourself in the trenches and want to be invalided back to Blighty, don’t bother sticking underpants over your head, just try to not think about something for ten minutes and that should do the trick. Having bad thoughts does not make you a bad person. Acting on them does.

Speaking of bad people, I hardly ever read other people’s blogs, which I feel incredibly guilty about because I always want people to read mine and that makes me a rather massive hypocrite. Honestly, it’s just a question of time. Between work, family, blogging, watching movies to review and trying to keep on top of other writing projects (not to mention a rather serious gaming habit) I normally just don’t have the hours. Recently however, I made an exception and plowed through all of author Jenny Armintrout’s extensive re-cap of Fifty Shades of Grey over on Trout Nation. It’s hilarious, excellently written and I heartily endorse it.

“I am Unshaved Mouse, and I approve this blog. All my readers should check it out!”

"Huh. My stats just went up by a barely perceptible ammount. As if theyd been kicked by a tiny, tiny ant."

“Huh. My stats just went up by a barely perceptible amount. As if theyd been kicked by a tiny, tiny ant.”

Now, even though I know damn well that every last one of you knows what Fifty Shades of Grey is, blogging law stipulates that I give some background on what I’m talking about on the off chance that one of you has awoken from a coma so here we go. Fifty Shades of Grey is E.L. James’ re-purposed Twilight fanfiction where mousey milquetoast Anastasia Steele (Yes. Yes, really.) becomes involved with chiselled blonde billionaire Christian Grey and they have lots of badly punctuated sex. It was famously described by Salman Rushdie as the worst-written novel to ever be released by a major publishing house and so naturally became a huge commercial success.

“Welp, I guess they proved ME wrong.”

It is also porn.

And that’s not a criticism. It’s simply a statement of fact. It’s a piece of fiction written to get the reader off. Simple as. Now, during the course of the book Christian Grey does a lot of incredibly awful things. He emotionally manipulates Ana, plies her with alcohol, coerces her into sexual acts that she really does not want, beats her, threatens her, demeans her, isolates her from her friends and family and literally checks every item on the list for being an abusive partner (not hyperbole, Jenny actually did that very thing).

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Let’s all take a look at the Avengers 2 trailer now that everyone else has done that.

Howdy peeps,

So while I’m still technically on break a couple of things have arisen that need to be (belatedly) made mention of. Firstly, it appears that the following conversation occurred in the offices of Marvel studios.

“Hey Stan, you hear the Unshaved Mouse is going to start reviewing our movies?”

“What? Isn’t he that guy who reviewed all 53 canon Disney movies in only two years?

“That’s him.”

“Well damn, we’d better crank out some more movies before he burns right through them.”

“There, that oughta hold the bastard.” “Excelsior!”

Honestly, not really much to say at this stage, most of these movies almost certainly haven’t even got a completed script yet. I’m very interested to see that they’ll be tackling Civil War as a Captain America movie rather than an Avengers movie for a number of reasons. As I’ve mentioned before, I love Civil War, flaws and all, and I would love to see a version of it on the big screen (although, what with this coming straight after Captain America 2 it’s starting to look like Cap just fights the American government fulltime nowadays). Also happy to see a Captain Marvel movie on the slate, but the one that really has me psyched is Black Panther. Love the character, love the concept, love the costume, cannot frickin’ wait.

Soem complain that the costume is just like Batman's. And it is. With the crucial difference that it is much, much cooler.

Some complain that the costume is just like Batman’s. And it is. With the crucial difference that it is much, much cooler.

Oh, and peaking of Marvel, and my opinions on it, if you’re craving a fix of Mouse, a certain furry reviewer and his black magic using, mustachioed frenemy may have recently made a cameo appearance over on Newtcave.It’s a cool blog, as my spambots like to say, full of fascinating content that you should share.

So, as you all know I’ve been taking a break from reviews to focus on my writing. I spent the last few week writing in a cottage way out in the middle of the wilds of County Monaghan on Halloween because I’ve never read a Stephen King novel, apparently. I got some good work done, the first draft of my new play is now more or less finished, I’m pretty sure I’ve developed some killer new psychic powers and the army of killer slugs that came for me in the night now call me their Queen. Downside was that internet connection was spotty but I’ve been reading all your comments (and special thanks to the Hangman’s Daughter fans for your continued feedback. Always appreciated, thanks guys).

But of course, the real reason that I’ve had to interrupt my vacation was the fact that Disney/Marvel released the single most Disney/Marvellous thing ever. So, like the last horse asthmatically crossing the finish line of the internet long after everyone stopped caring, let’s take a look at the Avengers 2 trailer.

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The Unshaved Mouse’s Greatest Comics of All Time

Soon, I hope, issue Number 2 of my arc on League of Volunteers will be hitting the stands and will shortly thereafter, I have no doubt*, be acclaimed as the greatest comic ever. Before that happens, let’s take a look at some of the other greatest comics ever, before they are consigned to the ash pile of history.

Apologies gentlemen.
C’est la guerre.

So here is The Unshaved Mouse’s Top 17 Greatest Comics of all Time. Why 17? Because I wrote the list and then realized I’d left off Bone and Maus (which would have been both hugely unfair and, in the case of Maus, also weirdly ironic).

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Check this guy out!

Being the plugged-in, ears to the ground Disney fans you all are I’m sure that at least some of you have seen this:

It’s a Disnified rendering of all 12 Doctors (I’ll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognise the War Doctor) done by my friend and erstwhile League of Volunteers collaborator Stephen Byrne. It’s already gotten notice on the AV Club, the BBC website and a bunch of other websites with far greater profiles than this one. Stephen’s a fantastic artist (obviously), and has a wicked sense of humour too. Quote:

“I would like to thank the people who took the time to point out some errors in my recent ‘Disney Doctor Who’ post. It has been rightfully brought to my attention that ‘some of the designs aren’t exactly….Up to par….2 and 4 are too short’ and ‘6 looks like a looks like clown, 2 looks like a dwarf, 4 looks like he is sick with some sort of bad cold, 1 looks creepy, and 11 has eyebrows!’. A theme emerged – ‘2 and 4 are too short’.

Well, I’ve had a look back over the art in question, and the situation is far worse than I imagined. Indeed, some of the heights of the characters are factually inaccurate, but it doesn’t stop there. Upon closer inspection, I realised that I had accidentally exaggerated facial features and poses and mistakenly made choices about character and costume designs. I somehow used a bright saturated color palette that does not exist in reality, and (in some instances) just plain used creative license with zero regards for the consequences. Worse still, to my dismay – ‘THERE IS A ROSE ON DAVIDSON INSTEAD OF A CELERY STICK?!???!’, as one viewer put it. It turns out even the font was made up.

Thankfully there is still time to remedy this mistake. Please see below the updated correct version. Thanks for keeping me on the straight and narrow.

Apologies,
Stephen”

Michaelangelo painted, but was at heart a sculptor. Stephen draws, but his true medium is sarcasm.

Now Stephen has launched his own webcomic, Steve Loves Internet, a tender love story about the relationship between a man and a global network of interconnected hard-drives linked via optical, wireless and networking systems. It’s already shaping up to be one of my favourite webcomics and I strongly recommend you check it out and spread the word.

Mouse out.

Indefinite Claws: Six Little Things that Changed the Marvel Universe

Warning. This post contains spoilers for X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men, X2, X-Men 3, Wolverine: Origins, X-Men: First Class and possibly X-Men movies that haven’t even been made yet. Read at your peril.

So I saw X-Men: Days of Future Past, fell in love and we are getting married in the spring. Honestly, really enjoyed that movie. My favourite of the X-Men franchise so far, and probably my favourite comic book movie of the year. Now, I said “favourite”, not necessarily “best”. Captain America 2 had a tighter script, whereas DFP will have your brain swerving like an articulated truck driven by a drunken monkey to avoid all the plot holes. And I’m not even talking about the inevitable stuff that comes with a time-travel story, as I mentioned in the Meet the Robinsons review there is really no way to do a “travel back in time to save the future story” that makes logical sense. No, this is just basic inconsistencies with how different mutants’ powers work, and seriously bad science. And yet, I enjoyed this movie so much, even more that Cap 2. It moves around at a great clip, there’s some great gags and character moments and it has one phenomenal prison escape scene and also one of the most flat out jaw-dropping effects shots I can remember seeing since I don’t know when. Also, there’s James McEvoy, rapidly becoming one of my favourite actors, giving an absolutely beautiful performance as a young, embittered, broken Charles Xavier that I honestly think would be getting Oscar buzz if it was in a movie with fewer giant flying robots. But there’s a question that’s raised by the movie’s ending that I want to talk about, and to do that I need to spoil pretty much everything about the movie. It concerns six little things that completely changed the entire Marvel universe, and many would argue for the worst.

I refer of course, to Wolverine’s claws.

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League of Volunteers now available for online purchase!

Right, so you may remember that back in August I mentioned that I was writing a three issue arc for superhero comic, League of Volunteers and that the first issue would be on sale soon. Okay, so I may have stretched the definition of the word “soon” to the point where it could now probably play in the NBA but I am delighted to announce that League of Volunteers: Return of the King #1 is now on sale at the Atomic Diner Website for €5 (’bout seven dollars). If you like superheroes, and you like this blog…you see where I’m going with this right?

If so inclined, you can buy the comic here. Ah go on.

Shameless self promotion!? THAT’S OUR SECRET WORD OF THE DAY!!!

So yeah, I wrote a play which is being staged as part of the 10 Days in Dublin Festival . If you like what I write here…I’ve got to be honest, it in no way resembles what I write here but I am really, really proud of it. It’s called Joanna and it’s about two teenage girls who hire a legendary vigilante named Joanna to abduct, torture and kill the man they blame for their best friend’s suicide. Cheery stuff, right? It’s running in the New Theatre in Temple Bar for three afternoons, tomorrow, the eighth and the ninth at one o’clock. Any local Unshaved Mouseketeers (can we make that a thing? No?), or anyone who just happens by pure, random chance to be in Dublin right now, pop on over and say “Hi.” Tickets are €10 or €8 with concession.

Oh, and because I want to get all my shameless plugging done for today, check out this interview with me and artist Stephen Byrne over at Mentalist Dave for the new issue of League of Volunteers.

Now, back to the Pocahontas review. Where’s my hatchet?