Matching Uniforms of course!   There is no 'I' in TEAM!

No, being Canadian, I am waiting for the special Alpha Flight meets Prime Minister Stephen Harper!

You are kidding me right?  This whole thing licks.

2008 is over and my entry back into comics was quite the comeback.  Heck, now with digital comics, I can check out everything I ever wanted to check out!  I found a great kickass little proggy to view comics on my Mac called Comicbooklover and well, it all took off from there!

So what were the best books out there this year?  Please keep in mind that I haven't really kept up with comics for over ten years and am just trying to catch up.  Oh course catching up usually means just finding out and understanding what the hell is going on with the big two universes. 

The Phantom (Moonstone).  Well, the Phantom is the one comic I HAVE been paying attention to for the past few years.  I am a huge Phantom phan and well, have picked up many of Moonstone's trades.  Love the series more than ever, BUT the bloody delays releasing this comic have REALLY turned me off.  I used to really root for the underdog little Moonstone press but man, make a bloody deadline!  This series is apparently over and a new series will debut in 2K9 called something like The Phantom: Ghost Who Walks.  Why?  Beats the hell outta me.

CONAN!  I got to go through the entire Conan series this year, the Dark Horse one.  They've closed that one down now and created a new series called Conan the Cimmerian which I have to get into yet, there's so much out there that I just haven't gotten around to the new series but I'll tell you one thing, the first series ROCKED!

BOOM!  Studio's Fall of Cthulhu is freaking amazing.  I have to get caught up recently but the first several issues I have read are great.  Unfortunately this comic is suffering from expansion - itis.  There's a different Fall of Cthulhu line every month it seems.  Boom!, don't over saturate the bloody thing and confuse people like me.  Keep the main comic going and patiently release these great stories, don't release like several Fall of Cthulhu:Spinoff titles a month!

A long time ago I read Strikeforce: Morituri and loved it as a kid.... I was able to go back and re read this series and get all the comics I missed.  It started out as good as I remember it, but then got caught up in this government conspiracy story which kind of blew.

Tarot - Witch of the Black Rose... good shit here.  Some over the top crappy stories, but way more fantastic ones.  I have run out and bought all the trades available!  Good stuff, fantastic stories, and Raven Hex is my dream comic girl!

Perhaps in my top three ongoing series... The Walking Dead!  Zombie horror, great characters, just plain awesomeness!

Oh, I'm a big fan of the show Battlestar Galactica so thought I'd check that out, read the original Dynamite Series but they are suffering from the same BOOM! Studios' Fall of Cthulhu disease... there are a million spinoffs now!  I may get back to them, expecially once the show is over this year.  Speaking of Dynamite, the one big title I read... but have only read a dozen or so, so far is Red Sonja.  heck I am a huge Conan fan so why not check this out... plus I am sooo looking forward to Rose McGowan as RED!

The Jungle Babes:  Sheena: Queen of the Jungle, Jungle Girl, and Shanna the She-Devil... all of em are quite similar but I love a girl in leopard print bikinis!  Tell you one thing.  It was Shanna and Jungle Girl that made me an instant Frank Cho fan!

And finally I decided to TRY and catch up to the DCU.  I started out with titles I liked as a kid, I checked out the new Supergirl thing and it was actully pretty danged annoying.  I would have dropped it, but every once in a while there was a good issue.  I got into Superman/Batman... mainly because Supes and the Bats are who I grew up with and heck, it introduced that whole new Supergirl series.  However, I have kind of set that series aside for a bit, the whole two point of view thing was getting on my nerves.  So I started with the Supes comics, Action, etc.  Couldn't understand a thing so I checked out Crisis On Infinite Earths to see just what the heck is going on...began to sort of understand it a bit and am currently checking out the UBER CONFUSING Infinite Crisis.  Yay.  After that I know it's Final Crisis and then I hope I am bloodywell caught up and understand a little of what has gone on in the DCU for the past ten-fifteen years.  We shall see.  I WISH I could've just read my stinkin' Supes comic W/O all this bullstuff just because I keep thinking to myself 'what the hell is going on here?' every once in a while.

Last but not least I read the whole (well the latest anyway) Legion of the Superheroes series.  Bloody good stuff most of the time anyhow.  Too bad that series is cancelled after one more issue!

What I THINK is going to happen in 2K9?  I am still gonna try and figure out this Crisis crap and get slowly caught up in the DCU and try and keep up with my faves I have discovered this year like the Walking Dead, Tarot, etc.  I will have to find replacements and new discoveries for the cancelled stuff like the Legion of Superheroes so I will keep exploring!  So many comics out there!

Variant covers are one of the biggest problems for entry into comic book readership.

I am a comic reader and not a collector.  There are many comic readers and non-collectors out there.  I would collect a bit if I didn't feel like I was being raped when they come out with multiple covers.  People want to buy/own something that is complete.  When you know there is something different out there it is just human nature to want it, so big fans are never happy just getting the one book when there are other covers out there.

That's why the trades are really taking off.  Those comic readers enjoy them plus most of the time the artwork for all variant covers are included in them.  If comic companies want to make single issues more accessible to the general non-collector public, they would make it easier to get into comics.  Goodness knows just trying to get into a series when it's been around long is difficult enough... why do they need to make it even more confusing (and expensive!).

Ugh.  Well it's halfway through the Xmas holidays and while I wasn't really planning on really taking any time off, I finally at the last minute decided to take this week off.

Survived my birthday celebrations (two pretty hard core nights which I am seriously paying for today), family gatherings for Xmas before that, and now trying to get out of really doing anything big for New Years.  World Junior Hockey Championships and Bowl Games all over the television... how the heck to fit in any time for some good reads?

I think I will try out this Watchmen comic now.  Everyone looks at me like I am an alien when I say I've never read it.  I got it, and have to get around to reading it.  Currently though plugging through the Walking Dead series, definitely a killer series.  This last few issues in the 'This Sorrowful Life' storyline have probably been one of the most intense and gruesome I have EVER read in comics.  YIKES.

So many comics, so many danged things to do.  Bowl game... or Watchmen?  Team Canada kicking the crap out of Team USA (on tonight!!!) or the (well, either way, I'll be looking at a team of dead things)?  Thankfully I've go till the fifth to relax and chill out with some good reads.