Almost 3 years ago, Yourmomsbasement brought you a controversial view of the truth behind Marvel’s comic book solicitations. This scathing insight can be found here true believer: http://www.yourmomsbasement.com/archives/2005/05/the_truth_about_1.html

Obviously we took some time to finish basking in the glory of our Webshite Award ^TM nomination, but (although we’ve tried) we can’t rest on our laurels for too long, so we have decided to revisit old ground and put a twist on it to lead to future glory. Look on it as polishing a turd if you will.

This time around, we have been researching into the actual meaning of some of the most common solicitation copy. These can influence your buying habits; with a few words you can be enraptured and drop major bank on product which may not deliver on its promise. In today’s economic climate we know your comics dollar, pound, euro and shekel is important, so to this end we have created this article to help you, the reader, to make an informed choice.

An irregular spot whereby our hero highlights books that he may or may not have purchased – on new comics day several years ago – if he had been so inclined.

There are a few things here which, depending on my mood and the clarity of my perception, could disturb me. Firstly Lois seems to have abandoned all credibility and setback the women’s movement by several decades. Or perhaps she’s decided to take the cause forward and is an early adopter of frottage. Does Superman give a stuff about Lois, or does he just despise her taste in cocktail dresses? Why are all of the people grinning inanely? What do they know that we, the poor unsuspecting reader don’t?

Either way, this is a cracking cover and a true demonstration of them not making them like they used to.

And there you have it ladies and gentlemen; the comic book adaptation of James Bond in “For Your Eyes Only”. If that wasn’t awesome enough, its written by Larry Hama and pencilled by Howard Chaykin. Howard Chaykin? How much better can you get than that? American Flagg/James Bond. Two sides of the same coin? Or not. Anyway, I remember seeing this film at the cinema and wishing I hadn’t, but to have read this adaptation…? Absolutely.

You know what? I’ll even throw in another June 1981 movie adaptation which I know I did buy.

Ahhhh…

While carrying out our usual in depth research to find the very finest of strangeness on the Interweb, we were troubled to find these:

Now let me take you through my thought process:

This is a joke. Has to be. I bet if I Google it I’ll find lots of the usual humor sites with the same image.

I was 50% right: The Sex-kitten.net Store (not safe for work). Unfortunately they’re all sold out of Spermies. However, this all got me thinking about why such things exist? I find it hard to believe that they are of any use in the bedroom department, unless you like to eat sweets in bed. No, the true raison d’etre must be as novelty presents for prospective husbands and wives, secret santees or (apologies, no pun intended) coming-of-age type scenarios such as 21st birthday parties or as a present on your first day of your first job.

Of course, that was before I found out the novelty sex candy industy is worth about $100 million a year.

Anyone feel like joining in on a new business venture?

Another simple one but truly delicious. We have this about once a week in our house because it takes about an hour all in and much less if you can cook the beans in the lamb without blanching/steaming first. If you have a lid for your pan then skip step 6.

Ingredients

• 1 large onion chopped
• 1 lb of ground lamb
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes (400g)
• 2 cloves of crushed garlic
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ground cumin
• 1lb trimmed green beans
• Basmati rice, steamed/boiled to your liking

Method:

1. Saute the onions in a little olive oil in a pan
2. Add the lamb mince and brown (approx. 10 minutes)
3. Take a minute to extract the fat. A lot will build up so remove as much as you can
4. Add the tomatoes and their liquid
5. Add the spices and garlic
6. Blanch or steam the green beans (skip if you have a cover for the pan)
7. Add the green beans and stir well
8. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 15-20 minutes (cover if you have one)
9. Serve over some basmati rice

Up Next: Risotto

Much comics based discussion has been focused on  the Justice League of America and its easy to see why. Just a few years ago the series was relaunched on the back of a company wide crossover event, with direction being set by a high profile team including bestselling author Brad Meltzer. However, after Meltzer had built a core team and worked with Geoff Johns to reinstate the annual JLA/JSA meeting – which this time included one of the myriad Legion of Superheroes  and as a particular storyline endgame brought back Wally West and his family from their Speed Force exile - he left. Post Meltzer, the series had some fill in writers, but in the main it was left to Dwayne McDuffie to write the book on an ongoing basis.

Which is where the trouble really started.

Not with McDuffie per se, but as we have seen in the last few months, the path to production of a consistent Justice League title was not smooth. In fact, arguably the only consistency in the title has been in the negative as critical – yes, and fan – feedback has been poor. What we’ve learned from the man himself is that while he had a direction for the team and storylines in mind all that was scuppered at many stages; an editorially mandated change impacting one storyline, saw him change tack fulfilling the request and setting off in a new direction, only for that to be impacted by another title or editor.  Now McDuffie has gone, fired after he set the record straight. Whether he should have taken such a public stance or not isn’t the issue; Justice League of America is a mess.

This shouldn’t be.

It must be DC’s flagship title. The best and the brightest of the DCU should be amongst its roster and a solid creative team should be in place, driving forward the title, team and characters with a vision for at least 2 years. When you have teams like The Outsiders and two sets of Titans working with a clearer direction than a team that should be as good as, if not better than, The Avengers from Marvel, then something is very wrong.

So we’re going to fix it.

Stay tuned.

An irregular spot whereby our hero highlights books that he may or may not have purchased – on new comics day several years ago – if he had been so inclined.

I mean, can you imagine the sort of information and experience Jabba The Hut could give you about Business and Sales? Carbonite freezing poor performers; dressing up secretaries as slave girls; hiding sandwiches from business lunches under folds of flesh so you can have them for dinner too?

Could he be the interstellar equivalent of The Apprentice? Is this now the core text for MBA courses? If not, why not?

Oh look, fussy covers. Nice. Actually, fuzzy covers but on second thoughts fussy might be better. In my defence it is hard to show a hologram cover but if you stand well back and squint you can see that when Clark Kent takes off his glasses he morphs into Superman and flies away.You may also see his flies are open.

Squint hard mind.