Reboot

Back row (left to right): Me, Geoff Ong, Axel Ortiz
Front row (left to right): Eric Canete, Jonard Soriano, Jojo Aguilar

It's popular but I still hate it #1

So I was chatting with Eric the other day about the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine trailer that is now all over the net and I commented on how high the production levels were. The movie looks like it has a lot of potential to be a slick looking movie, but the amount of characters that show up in the trailer is...ambitious.

I think the problem with the X-Men movies as they progressed, and I suppose you can say the same is true for the comics, is the plethora of characters that show up. It feels as though the writers get so caught up in tipping their hats to the fanboys and fangirls that they let the story slip. And then there's Gambit. I don't like Gambit.

I'll probably ruffle some feathers for saying this, but Gambit really is nothing more than a cheap ripoff of all the other lovable rogues we of geekdom really love. He show's up out of nowhere with a nonchalant attitude and chases women that could potentially kill him because he just can't help himself. Oh and he's mysterious. We can't forget the "mystery" that surrounds him. I guess the mutant world didn't have enough mysterious badasses, we needed one more card playing, cigarette smoking, mystery man. But this one likes gumbo and says shit like, 'mon chere'.

I grew up with the Jim Lee era X-Men. Starting with Uncanny to the adjectiveless version and Gambit was all over those pages. As a kid, I ate his antics up, but even as a kid I could see that the same writing tricks used on Wolverine were used on him. I'll be the first to admit I don't read X-Men anymore. So my comments on Gambit are focused more on the core of the character as opposed to current continuity. So with that said, isn't Gambit just a cheap mutant version of Han Solo?

C'mon, look at these two guys. Who's going to kick whose ass?



Okay, so lets do a comparison between the two and see if there are any real differences.

Handsome rogue? Check.
Kicks ass with a nonchalant attitude? Check.
Falls in love with a woman he probably shouldn't date? Check.
Runs with the underdogs against a more powerful world order? Check.
Keeps his personal history from his friends, thus increasing his mysterious profile? Check.
Wears once fashionable outerwear over a questionable tight shirt as his preferred wardrobe? Check.

Yeah, I think the only real difference between the two is one flies a fast plane and the other one just rides in a fast plane. I guess I can see why Gambit is so popular with X-Men fans, but I still hate him.

December Rain

Image by Eric Canete
Words by Jonathan Tsuei

The December rains were coming down harder than I could remember. Each drop felt like an icicle piercing my skin and left me numb. Charlie was as faithful as ever, tolerating the rain with me. He hated the rain. I knew she would be here tonight, but I had no idea she would look as beautiful as she did. It wasn’t her silk gown that trailed behind her in a magnificent train. It wasn’t how her hair was pulled back perfectly so the world could see her face. It was the gleam in her eye. She was in love; in love with someone other than me.

I called out her name tentatively and she paused, she recognized my voice. I managed a smile, but I could not disguise my longing. Charlie did his best to feign pride for us both.

“What are you doing here?” she asked me.

“I had to see you,” I managed as the rain thundered down around us.

“Didn’t have time to find an umbrella?” she said with a smile that still sent a tingling sensation across my body.

“I didn’t have time for that. Listen-“

“No,” she said as she shook her head. “I know why you’re here, but you can’t do this to me now. We went through all of this after we broke up. You would come rushing back into my life and I would drop everything to see if it could work again, to see if anything changed, but it was always the same thing with us. I love you, I have loved you for a very long time and I kept coming back to you because I thought you were the one for me. I know now that as much as I love you, I’m no longer in love with you. I have to move on, so do you.” She paused, “I’m happy now.”

That tingling sensation her smile made me feel gave way to the numbness of the cold rain. I remember telling her that all that was important to me was her happiness. I just never thought that someone else would be able to make her happier than I could. Here I was staring at the love of my life with a broken heart and reality shattered the broken pieces into nothing more than dust. I could almost see the dust get swept away in the water pouring down from one stair to the next.

“Is there nothing I can say or do?” I asked. I could feel the tears start to come on, but I forced them back.

The look on her face softened and for a split second I could see that gleam in her eye redirect it’s light on me. “There is so much you can do and say to make me come back to you,” she said almost too quietly for me to hear. “I’ve decided to move on and I’m sorry to say this to you, but I won’t let you pull me back in.”

That final look she gave me as she turned to leave was a mix of sadness and hope. However, it wasn’t a hope for us. It was a hope that she was making the right decision. It was a hope that her happiness would last this time. I wanted to run toward her and hold her, but I stood my ground and just watched her leave. Charlie let out a bark. She kept walking.

What Comic Book News Sites Do Wrong

Hey look, something dragged me out of my hole and brought me to my blog. It's a new day people and something good is going to happen (until I fall back down my hole again).

So things have been interesting as of late. Still holding down the day job and writing in my free time. I'm tired as all hell, but it's a good thing. At least that's what I tell myself before I go to sleep at night, haha. I kid.

So I was perusing the web the other day and came across an article on Blog@Newsarama.com by one of the new contributors to that blog Russ Burlingame. The article is entitled "What Comics Do Wrong" and focuses mainly on the Public Enemy comic but it does mention several other licensed comics as selling only "indie" numbers and being a disservice to the comic book community. As you can imagine I was a little annoyed by the comments, especially since they felt as though they were rooted in ignorance.

If you read his article, my response is in the comment section somewhere. I'll go ahead and repost my response here.

I can’t speak for any of the other books you mentioned but I can speak for Comic Book Tattoo. You claim that these “licensed” properties sell more like “indie” books and do more harm to the medium than help it.

If that was the case with CBT it wouldn’t have sold out at SDCC, the softcover would not have gone back to print, it would not have been on the featured tables in Barnes & Noble and it would not currently be the #3 best selling Image book and in the top 100 selling graphic novels on Amazon.com.

You comments also show that you didn’t bother to read CBT, instead you just lumped it in a category that you label as “just a piece of merchandising”.

The efforts from the almost 100 different contributors of CBT, as well as the editor Rantz Hoseley (who also contributed to the content), was nothing short of inspired. You really have no right to include CBT as an example of “What Comics Do Wrong” when you apparently have no experience with the material.

Maybe you read CBT from cover to cover and hated everything in it. If so, you’re entitled to feel that way, but you should do your research before you make claims that the book only sold a few thousand copies and “cheapens” the community.

Those involved with CBT are a very talented group of people and they all worked extremely hard to make sure the book would not only be able to stand on it’s own as a collection of good comics, but that it represented comics positively to those readers who may not be comic book fans.

It's frustrating when someone feels a need to include one of your works to try and prove a weak point to begin with. On top of that, that person has no real experience with the material and just spouts off with no facts to back up his argument. I see that sort of thing quite a bit in comic book "journalism" and it drives me nuts. People really should do a little research before they start typing out their thoughts.