Alas, poor Yorick, the last man on earth.

Second day in a row and almost no updates that interest me from Wizard again! What gives man? I guess they give equal coverage to DC and Marvel...and I really don't give two damns about DC's shit most of the time. And some Marvel stuff just doesn't really pique my interest all that much.

So I finished reading Dr Strange: The Oath yesterday and boy was it good! It just cements Brian K. Vaughan's reputation as a stellar writer (with brilliant comedic timing and humour!) and while he's already one of my favourite writers, he's quickly moving up a notch or two. I think at last count, he was my 3rd or 4th favourite writer...he's easily just behind Brian Bendis and Alan Moore now, with Ed Brubaker moving to 4th and Mark Millar just a tad out of touch at 5th.

Was desperate to read another TPB yesterday but I couldn't decide what I wanted to read: Astro City? XXXenophile? Captain America Omnibus? I didn't want something too heavy or something too light. And though I know I'm probably going to regret doing this (because I've only at the moment got Vols.1-3 and 8-9), I started Y - The Last Man...by a certain Mr Vaughan. Might have something to do with the fact that I wanted to read something written by him after reading the goodness that was Dr Strange: The Oath.

Now I've read all the TPBs of Y - The Last Man published so far...heck, I own ALL of them, though most of the TPBs are back in Singapore. Trying to rebuild my collection here a la the Preacher series, since it's just so good. The premise is simple: something happens that causes every human, foetus and mammal with a Y chromosome (that's the one that's in the MALE gender for those of you who never studied genetics) in the world to just die at the same moment. The gendercide is complete worldwide...all except for one man and his pet monkey.

Cmon...if that premise doesn't get you hooked, what will? It's the last man on earth! With his monkey! As the last man and the only one with a working...er...set of tools, doesn't that automatically make his wang hot property? Shouldn't he be some sort of Wilt Chamberlain/Hugh Hefner hybrid when it comes to number of women bedded?

On the contrary. Life isn't that rosy for the last man on earth. It's a brilliant examination of the human psyche, and everyone knows I love reading about stuff where a human (or bunch of) get thrusted into extreme situations and we get to see how they react. Yorick, our hero, doesn't quite become the love machine that one automatically assumes he would be. There are a whole bunch of femi-nazis gunning for him. Heck, seems like a LOT of people are after him, either to kill him or to sell him off in the sex trade, or to try and protect him so he could one day jumpstart humanity again.

It's a fascinating read and it's a shame the series ends with #60, which I believe is out in stores this month. I'd love to read this series back to back just like I did Preacher, though it'd take me a couple of days...at least a week, what with my working schedule. But having read the first three issues in the first TPB yesterday and this morning, I've already discovered a whole lot of other things that I didn't know about previously. It's one of my recommended reads...try it!

On another note, it's also a title published by Vertigo, the mature-readers-centric line of titles published by DC comics. Some of my FAVOURITE titles and series have been published by Vertigo. While I generally shun the DC stuff (because I just don't relate and care for the superheroes in the DC-verse...I'm a Marvel man after all!), Vertigo stuff is just so awesome.

I've got Preacher, Y - The Last Man, Ex Machina, Fables, Jack of Fables, 100 Bullets (though I've never had the time to read them...have the TPBs at home)...and then there are titles like Bite Club that they publish that I have. I'm also interested in Loveless and American Virgin and a whole lot of other titles published. Not to mention that Neil Gaiman's famous Sandman series was a Vertigo series and a lot of the popular mainstream writers all got their start on that imprint, like Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Brian Azzarello, Ed Brubaker, Warren Ellis...and Alan Moore too!

Vertigo: A font of creative goodness.

Girls and Dr Strange: The Oath!

Not much today in terms of updates that interest me on the Wizard Universe website.

I finished reading Vols.3 and 4 of the Luna Brothers' Girls. While it may sound like it, it certainly isn't THAT kind of comic! On the contrary...while it DOES feature naked girls running around a small American town, the story has sci-fi and drama roots.

What basically happens is that one night, this girl appears buck naked in front of our hero, resident loser of his town who's going through some relationship problems with his ex. Of course, he doesn't turn down the opportunity and sleeps with her.

The very next day, something really strange happens: the naked girl starts laying eggs! The eggs grow bigger and bigger and finally hatch...only for more naked girls that are a clone of the original one to come out! And these women seem to have only two goals in mind: kill the women of the town and sleep with as many men as possible so they could produce more eggs and thus, more of their kind.

The town is thrown into upheaval and no one can trust each other. The women don't trust the men because they think the men just want to have sex with the naked girls and thus, multiply their numbers, giving them superior numbers against the town's women. The men hate that the women don't trust them that the can keep their willies to themselves. There's a lot of killing, a lot of deaths, and a whole lot of nudity.

While the ending was a bit blah, the series was quite fascinating with its insight to the human psyche and how humans behaved when placed in extraordinary circumstances under high pressure conditions. There are the people you just can't help but hate: the ugly-deep-down inside woman who bullies her husband with her "I must control everything" personality, the gold digger from China who put up with her husband only because she wanted the material richness of being associated with the family, the assclown of a man who isn't satisfied with his marriage and thus goes on a sex-romp/orgy with the naked girls, even though it's a bad idea to sleep with them in the first place.

It's full of drama and elements of science fiction. I really enjoy the drama aspects...I like reality TV so this series was really good for me to examine the behaviour of humans. And the Luna Brothers have beautiful artwork and a pretty good story to boot. The premise is awesome but the ending was a letdown. If you get a chance to check out this series, I'd recommend it heartily.

Started on Dr Strange: The Oath as well. Finished the first chapter where it's revealed that Wong has an inoperable tumour and only has three months to live. Dr Strange refuses to accept this and goes on a journey to find a cure. It's really funny so far, with the story opening up in a hospital where Arana and Iron Fist are making smalltalk while waiting for the Night Nurse to attend to their injuries.

Can't wait to read the rest of it tonight!

Preacher rules!

Well, I read the final TPB of Preacher yesterday and it is JUST. SO. AWESOME. There are only 75 issues in the entire series of Preacher: 66 regular single monthly issues, five one-shot specials and a four issue Saint of Killers mini-series. And the entire saga is just brilliant.

I can't just recommend it highly enough. I've recommended so much stuff to friends over the years...Watchmen is another one of my highly recommended titles, as well as Fables and most stuff written by Alan Moore. But for sheer great storytelling and comedy/dark humour, you just can't go beyond Preacher. Where else will you get to see a teenager with the face of an arse, a German ex-special ops soldier who's got a head that looks like a giant penis, just to name some of the more memorable characters?

I really like Garth Ennis' title to each single issue story too. He's got titles that are named after brilliant quotes from lyrics, such as "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" ("Me and Bobby McGee" - Kris Kristofferson), and then he makes reference to the battle at the Alamo with Bowie, Crockett and Travis and the 180 men.

The Wikipedia entry on Preacher is pretty comprehensive too, for those who want to find out more about it. Not too many spoilers there either:

Preacher on Wikipedia

Started reading the latest TPB of Y - The Last Man yesterday...that's another super read, though nowhere close to as good as Preacher.

Catching up on reading TPBs

No new updates from Wizard Universe today, unfortunately...nothing that really interests me much. There's an interview with Ed Brubaker, Mike Carey and Chris Yost about the latest storyline, Messiah Complex, that's going to be the prevalent storyarc in the X-Men titles, but I've been weaned off the X-Universe for quite a long time now that it doesn't really interest me much anymore. The last real storyarc/series I read was Morrison and Quitely's run on New X-Men...and not only was that ages ago, but I didn't even get the single issues and resorted to purchasing the HCs and TPBs to read the entire storyline! Oh yeah, must remind myself to save up for that New X-Men Omnibus...I really love those Marvel Omnibuses which are something like the DC Absolute Editions, though with less extras but more issues collected.

I'd finished reading Preacher Vol.7, so I'm about 70 to 80 per cent through the entire series. Jarrod from Classic Comics rang me yesterday evening to inform me that Preacher Vol.8 is in store now, so once I get it, just another two more TPBs to read and I'd have read the Preacher series for the third time. It gets better everytime I read it...learn so much more! I'd really love for one day to have loads of free time to read the entire series from cover to cover in one go. Would take me a good portion of the day methinks. But hell, it'd be worth it.

Obviously, I needed something else to read in the meantime, since I didn't know when Preacher Vol.8 was going to be available, so I started on Brian K. Vaughan's Y - The Last Man Vol.8. I've got the seven previous volumes back in Singapore and I THOUGHT I'd remember enough of the story to make reading the latest TPB worthwhile...but alas, it felt like just jumping into the series midway with not much of an idea what had happened previously before! That's one of the reasons why I decided to get the ENTIRE Preacher series again here...I wanted to have the whole collection to read in the one go. Y - The Last Man is absolutely brilliant as well and well worth getting the entire series too. Hmmm...priorities.

I started on the Ed Brubaker run of Daredevil as well last night, which is kinda nice because while it was good to have some previous idea of what happened in the past in Brian Michael Bendis' run, it certainly wasn't necessary to know ALL that had transpired. Got through the first three issues in the TPB and it's as good as the critics have said. I really love the whole notion of Daredevil's secret identity being outed in the press, then everyone looking at him as if he's this street urban vigilante who fights crime at night but fights evil in the court of law in the day. Which is exactly what he does...but now with the added "twist" that people know and shoot accusatory glares at him!

It's funny seeing how Murdock keeps denying that he's Daredevil, but then proceeds to prove that he's anything BUT a blind man. Take for instance: Murdock is thrown in jail and he keeps telling the prison warden that he's not Daredevil. So the prison warden, who's been bought off, sets a trap for him in which a group of superthugs all jump Murdock, hoping to shiv him. A couple of panels later, the prison guards bust in and they find everyone bruised, bloody and down for the count...all except Murdock, who's ATTEMPTING to hide in the corner, completely unharmed. Murdock's excuse? That the thugs (who ALL work for the same person) just started beating up on each other and in the panic, he was trying to find some corner to escape the violence. Yeah, I'm sure they'd believe that.

There are too many incidents in the prison where the prisoners all start heading to the infirmary, one by one. And is it a massive coincidence that these prisoners all have had run-ins with Murdock BEFORE being sent to the hospital? It doesn't look good for Murdock's secret identity, but I love the way that it's playing out this way. Oh! In the last panel of the third issue, we see a man snapping the neck of a wannabe rapist. A bunch of cops see this happening and they rush up to arrest the man. The man opens up his trenchcoat and then puts his arms up in the air, asking for the cops to arrest him and take him to prison...the same prison that Murdock is in.

All this is well and good, until they focus in on the man's chest and there's this eerie huge fricking skull on his chest. You guessed it...the Punisher wants to go to prison! Does he want to save Daredevil, his one time ally? Or does he want to kill him, since Daredevil has been his long-time nemesis...not nemesis in terms of "I want to kill you because you're my enemy", but nemesis because both of them don't agree on the way to deal with villains. Daredevil wants villains to go through due process in a court of law, while the Punisher, well, he wants to punish them by killing them all and letting God sort them out.

I can't wait to read the rest tonight!