#your very own mini reviews

[destielfanfic]

from the inbox, #10

I love to see new asks about post season 15 destiel fics but my answers are mostly the same, unfortunately. The usual disclaimer applies - our blog transitioned to archive in January 2018, during season 13, and our new fic recs drastically decreased.

Hello, could you recommend any plot-driven fics set post-15x20 that are a bit longer and also explore the relationship between Dean and Castiel? I'm mostly looking for something that is canon compliant (Dean dies and goes to heaven in 15x20)

I’ve answered similar asks on our previous from the inbox posts, so definitely check out those. But for the sake of convenience, here are some links - post 15x20 rec lists Happiness isn’t in the Having and Good things Do Happen . These are mostly short fics, but you can always check out the authors and see if they have longer fics. 

This is random, but do you know any fics where Dean starts dating cas because he feels bad? Something like dean dates castiel as a pity date? I've really been wanting to read something like that :p 

This is very random indeed! Especially if that is meant in a post 15x20 setting. I must admit I’m drawing a blank here. 

hi! not sure if this is the right place to ask this (if it’s not im rly sorry!) but can u rec me some destiel fics where like . dean thought they were dating all along and cas didn’t? sorry if it didn’t make a lot of sense! thanks  

And this is an opposite of the previous ask!

OK, guys, since there is huge interest in post finale destiel fics, I’m opening floor for follower recs/ self recs on this post. Please add in reblogs or notes destiel fics that fit these criteria: 

A - longer, plot driven post 15x20 fics that explore Dean and Cas relationship

B - fics where Dean takes Cas on a pity date after Cas confessed his love in 15x18; canon verse fics are preferred but if you have some AUs, feel free to add

C - fics where Dan thought they were dating while Cas had no idea

＊＊＊＊

We have some fic suggestions from our followers！

A - canon verse fics dealing with 15x20

The Blood Curse by Labgeek2002 [M, 32,700 word count]

Castiel has been rescued from the Empty, but the spell used to retrieve him tears a hole in the dimensional wall that acts as barrier protecting Earth from the pull of everlasting darkness. As the Empty feeds off of Castiel's grace to sustain itself, driving him closer to death with every passing minute, Dean becomes desperate to save him. The only way to repair the damage is for Dean, Sam, and Cas to travel back in time to obtain a witch's stone that's in the possession of John Winchester, circa 2002. A twenty-three year old Dean Winchester will serve as their guide as they navigate the tumultuous father-son relationship that transcends time itself before the Empty draws its final curtain.

Beyond This Illusion by tiaevans87 [NC-17, 161,400 word count]

“Are you serious, Dean? Your djinn-dream started with you dying?” Sam asks incredulously from the passenger seat on the way back to the bunker. “Well, technically it started with us going on a hunt,” Dean points out. He licks his lips, jaw clenching. “I mean, there was Heaven, too, and that was pretty cool.” Sam stares at him. “Unbelievable,” he breathes, scrunching his face up in distaste. When Dean glares at him, he holds his hands up defensively and chuckles weakly. “Sorry, man, but that just sounds pretty lame.” He leans back and folds his arms. “It just…I dunno. Kinda sounds like something Chuck would cook up. Just you and me. No one else. I mean, really?” He scoffs, slumping. *~*~* In which some people come back, Cas learns to be human (the right way, this time), Dean Winchester finally realizes that good things do happen, and they all get their version of the post-credits, apple-pie life they deserved. AKA: Screw Chuck's narrative.

B - Dean takes Cas on a pity date

On Labor by a_good_soldier [NC-17, 24,600 word count]

Cas is back from the Empty, and Dean knows how to be grateful.

because he wears cowboy boots by mmtion [NC-17, 65,300 word count]

When Cas comes back from the Empty, Dean has to rethink everything about their relationship, and Dean’s new, post-Chuck duty. He wants Cas to be happy and get what he wants. So, if he wants Dean, then he has him. Dean’s new responsibility is to be the best boyfriend Cas will ever want or need. If that means moving out of the bunker, and not driving the Impala, and letting Cas fuck him, then that’s what he has to do. It’s an easy deal. It should be an easy life. So how come Dean still can’t quite make sense of it?

#destiel #from the inbox #su #this is kinda experiment #let's see how that goes #all recs fitting the criteria are welcome #feel free to add some thoughts #your very own mini reviews

[samkerrworshipper]

sticker chart | kyra cooney cross & reader x arsenal women’s team

r and kyra r the pranksters of the team… but what happens when they take it too far and the arsenal parents seperate them as a result

no warnings just some fluff angst and chaotic bestfriend energy

“Kyra, Y/n, time out, right now.”

It was Steph’s burst of anger that had your eyes bursting open, both you and Kyra sharing an apprehensive glance. The both of you looked up from your current predicament, which was the drink bottle that you’d just emptied onto Alessia’s head. Her jaw was almost on the ground, and her body was shaking already from the cold water.

In a split second telepathic decision you and Kyra made the decision to bolt, sprinting away from the training ground and your teammates as fast as possible, the both of you cackling as you made it into the safety of the London Colney gym, running as fast as possible into the team room and the both of you searching for a hiding spot.

“In the cupboard.”

Kyra motioned towards the cupboard in the corner of the gym, the long rectangular cupboard being just large enough for the two of you, so you squeezed into it, just closing the door in time to hear a series of footsteps running towards the gym.

The both of you held your breath, holding in the laughs that were building up in the bottom of your stomach.

The two of you were trouble. Always setting up pranks and getting on the nerves on your senior babysitters. Majority of your pranks were centred around Vic and Alessia, the two of you taking advantage of the younger, innocent girls who were so easy to target. It got you in a lot of trouble, especially with Steph, Caitlin, Kim, Leah and Viv, who were stretched thin trying to stop whatever menacing plans that you and your best friend were plotting.

It was a pointless task, the two of you were unstoppable, and always finding yourselves in trouble. It had gotten to a point where you’d been separated indefinitely in training, and the two of you were on your last chance at Steph’s house, being told that the next time you shaved her dog in the middle of the night or woke her and her fiance up with screaming noises. The two of you for whatever reason just couldn’t stop, you were invincible in the world of pranks and it was completely destructive to the Arsenal community, no one was safe.

The both of you bit down on the insides of your cheeks as you heard the doors to the gym open, and a pitter patter of cleats tapping against the floor of the gym.

“The both of you have three seconds before all of your tv privileges and cheat days are taken away for the next month.”

You shook your head at Kyra, whos eyes bursted open at the mention of the removal of your cheat days, Kyra, for whatever reason, had been craving deep fried chicken and a icecream sundae. It was weird, and normally every Thursday you had a cheat day, so her craving could be relieved, but last Thursday the video review, for whatever reason, had gone over by two hours, so by the time it was over it was far past the time window of getting food, leaving a very grumpy and hangry Kyra who was desperate for the foodher body was craving.

Cheat days were her weakness, so you pulled her hand down before she had the opportunity to open the cupboard doors and reveal your hiding spot to Steph.

“1.”

Kyra’s body shook against your own, her bones jumping inside of her body in an attempt to try and leave the box that you’d inserted yourself.

“I swear to god if I get to three and neither of you are out here I’m calling mini and Sam.”

That was definitely another weakness for the two of you, the both of you slightly terrified of the idea of your seconds moms getting a call about your less than adequate behaviour.

“2.”

Steph’s voice loitered, she was leaving room for the two of you to come out.

You were stubborn, Kyra was not, you fought to keep her from fighting her way out of the cupboard, but it was a losing battle, that had the two of you tumbling out of the wooden box and leaving you completely vulnerable to Steph, who marched her way over to the two of you immediately.

“I’ve had enough of you two today, your going to go to the lockerooms, sit in your cubby for twenty five minutes and think about your fucking behaviour before you go and apologise to Vic and Less, am I clear?”

With Steph’s towering form above you, neither of you were in any position to refuse, so you just nodded like kicked puppies and picked yourselves up from the floor, dragging your feet towards the locker rooms, your bodies slowly moving like prisoners walking into a jail.

When you got to the locker rooms, the both of you walked over to your respective cubbies, sitting down and facing the wall.

It was a fairly common occurrence for you two, you spent probably eighty percent of all your time at London Colney besides training in your cubby, at least one training a fortnight saw you here, if not more. You didn’t really mind, it was worth it considering all the fun you and Kyra got up too.

Replacing Leah’s shampoo bottle with pink hair dye, stealing all of the girls clothes whilst they were in the showers, tying everybody's cleats together, mixing up all of the jerseys in the laundry room, replacing the water jugs with apple cider vinegar, replacing all the name tags on the secret santa gifts, taking Alessia’s beloved car for a joyride, showing up to training on moon boots and crutches, faking running away.

The list was endless, concerningly. It got you into trouble, for sure, but for you guys it was some light hearted fun, your way of keeping yourselves entertained in a foreign country that was still new to you.

You could hear Kyra thinking from the other side of the room, out of the two of you she was the more remorseful one, but she was also the plotter and cheekier one. You ran along with whatever she came up with, and your commitment to whatever plan she had was unmatched, once you decided you were doing something you committed.

“Kyra for fucks sakes stop the tapping.”

It was driving you insane, listening to Kyra’s fingers tapping against the wall of her cubby, one of her anxious habits.

“Time out is silent time, speak up again and I’ll start the timer over.”

You tried to block out Steph’s voice, but it hung over you like a big grey cloud, your brain silently drowning itself in your skull as you studied the uniform wall that was the inside of your cubby. It was exceptionally boring, and it didn’t seem to matter how many times the two of you found yourselves in this situation, it was still as boring as ever.

You listened out for people coming in and out of the locker rooms, the door swinging open and the sound of studs against concrete. You weren’t rewarded with the sound of voices or conversation, everyone who filtered in being silent. It was hard to monitor who was coming in and out with your vision completely compromised.

You sat as still as you could manage, not at all wanting to have to sit for any longer than what Steph had already ordered you.

You didn’t doubt that she would reset the timer if you did speak up again, Steph was a softie, but she never let up on a promise, especially when it came to taking care of you and Kyra, something that you knew she was getting sick of, the both of you toeing the line constantly.

It did get you thinking, sure a harmless prank was fun, Katie was the biggest supporter of your pranks, always egging the two of you on from the sidelines, and yet she never got in trouble for it, it was always you and Kyra, the troublesome duo that had been adopted by the Arsenal parents.

“Both of you, turn around.”

You took a deep breath, shuffling around on your ass and blinking to adjust to the bright lights that were a vast contrast to the darkness of the corner of your cubby.

You were rewarded with the sight of Steph, Caitlin, Viv, Kim and Leah all with their jaws set and looking at you with significant disapproval. Alessia and Vic were loitering at their own lockers, sitting in the seats in front of them their hands and heads pointing down towards their laps.

“We’re sorry?”

Steph’s frown only managed to deepen, it was clear that she was nothing short of furious.

“You’re sorry? The two of you have single handedly pulled a series of completely destructive pranks that have taken it too far. Do I need to bring up the chalk spray paint on Manu’s car? Or the midnight door knocking at Stina and Amanda’s house? We’ve all given you chances, all enabled you to have a little bit of fun, but you’ve pushed it way past the point of funny.”

Kyra just closed in on herself, you had a little bit more fight in you, a little bit more defiance.

“We didn’t even do anything that bad today.”

Steph’s eyebrows rose even more than you thought humanly possible.

“That’s a joke right?”

You bit your lip, tossing up the day's events in your mind.

“I mean I don’t understand why Vic is here to be honest, Lessi whatever but we didn’t do anything to Vic.”

Steph blinked at you, her jaw almost dropping to the floor.

“So throwing Vic’s shoes on the roof of the building was nothing?”

You snorted as you recalled Kyra and your happenings of the mornings, which had included tossing a pair of Vic’s shoes on the roof, not to say that you didn’t get them down when the time came around for her to need them.

“We gave them back?”

This time it wasn’t Steph who answered your question, Caitlin stood up from her seat Walking closer towards you.

“You should be fucking glad you did. Look, I understand, you guys are young and you like to have fun, but it constantly being at the expense of everyone else is getting annoying, and neither of you have made any motions to stop or even begin to think about how your fucking pranks affect everybody else, Steph is stressed out of her mind having to babysit the two of you twenty four seven, we all are.”

You could feel the conversation leading somewhere, Kyra’s puppy dog eyes were pleading with Caitlin but her tough guy act didn’t fade.

“I’m getting the feeling that this is leading to something and I just want to put it out there that I dibs anywhere but Chelsea if we have to move clubs.”

Caitlin just rolled her eyes at your attempt at humour, it was humour hidden behind genuine fear, because there was no way in fucking hell you were trading breezy arsenal for Sammy’s Chelsea, where you knew she would drill sergeant you and Kyra into being boring and non pranksters.

“You know what we all have every right to send you off to Sam, how do you think she’d react hearing about all the shit that the two have you have gotten up to?”

She’d probably go ballistic. She’d gotten a taste of you and Kyra’s trouble making at the women's world cup and had very quickly put a stop to it, nipping it in the bud before it got to your current spiral.

“But you aren’t?”

You noticed from the corner of your eye that Kyra was looking very stressed from her corner of the room.

“Ky, come here.”

You opened up your arms to your best friend, unbothered as to whether or not you were disrupting Caitlin’s spiel, you were just worried about your friend. She slid her way across the benches until she made it to your side, digging her head into your neck and shoulder.

“No, we’re not, but honestly I think you’d prefer to stay with Sam then what you’re going to be dealing with.”

You visibly cringed, there wasn’t a lot of things that were worse than being in Sam’s bad books. You let your eyes flash across to the other captains and women who were in the room, aware that they were probably a part of whatever plot Caitlin and Steph had formed. Your curiosity peaked as you squinted at Caitlin, your anxiety spiking a little bit.

“W-what do you mean?”

Kyra’s voice quivered from your neck, her soft puppy dog pout hopefully doing wonders to convince the older women to back out of whatever they had planned. It was her signature move, and you were fairly sure that Steph would see through it, but there was always a point in trying.

“You’re both moving out of Steph’s, it’s not fair to her anymore to be burdened with the both of you. So Kyra, your going to Leah and Lia, Y/n you are staying with Beth and Viv.”

Your jaw slackened, Kyra jerking up in your arms as soon as the words left her mouth.

“What? You can’t separate us, we’re like conjoined twins, we’ll like die if you separate us.”

Caitlin kept up her stern facade, leaving zero room for vulnerability.

“You should have thought about that before you chose to take it too far. We’ve given you plenty of chances and you blew every single one off. So until the two of you can learn how to cohabitate without causing serious danger to the people around you, you’ll be separated. Beth and Lia have already been over to Steph’s house and collected your things. You both have sticker charts, when the two of you can go a whole two months without any seriously debilitating pranks then we’ll look at potentially letting the two of you move back in together.”

Kyra’s eyes lit up at the mention of a sticker chart, you were focused on your dignity, so even if the idea of shiny gold stickers did appeal to you, you tried to fight it.

“A fucking sticker chart? We’re not fucking six year olds and last time I checked this is a free country, so who says that you guys can control who and where we live anyway?”

This time it was Kim who stood up, intimidating both you and Kyra slightly.

“You’re acting like bloody six year olds. Last time I checked neither of you own apartments, neither of you have earned that kind of responsibility. So you are going to suck it up, your going home with a trusted adult and if you even try to pull anymore of the shit you’ve been pulling for the last few months there will be calls to Sam and Minnie who I have no doubt will have a lot more to say. Am I clear?”

Kyra and you nodded deftly, the both of you taken aback by Kim’s sterness.

“Do we get gold star stickers?”

You rolled your eyes at Kyra’s question, her big doe eyes peaking out of your neck to look at Kim.

“You can have whatever fucking stickers you like, I doubt they’ll be any need for them any time soon considering just how much trouble seems to find the two of you.”

You and Kyra played the pitiful act as you were led away by your respective caregivers, faux tears falling down your faces as Leah and Viv practically dragged you in the direction of their cars.

As soon as the car doors closed though and the babysitters were focusing their energy on the roads though, the two of you were already texting, plotting your next move in retaliation to the banishment that had the two of you grounded to Viv and Leah’s homes.

———————————————————————

notes:

thinking of turning this into a series of kyra and t just being completely chaotic besties so lmk how we feel about that !

#woso #woso community #leah williamson #marry me rn #arsenal wfc #steph catley #caitlin foord #kim little #kyra cooney cross #funny pranks #vivianne miedema #alessia russo #victoria pelova #arsenalwfc #arsenal x reader #arsenal women

[gilverrwrites]

Their Perfect Date HCs [Angel edition]

Rating: General

Human Edition | Monster Edition

Please remember: There is strength in softness.

Cas

Absolutely brings you flowers. 

Hear me out: fruit picking!

Something like strawberries

Spend the day outdoors in the sunny weather, chatting, walking, picking and comparing fruits. 

Maybe a picnic at the end where you can refuel, and Cas can bask in the sun. Enjoy people/nature watching together. 

Then you take him home and make your harvest into something; a pie, wine, jelly/jam.

Put him in a frilly apron and boop flour on his nose, he’s in love. 

Cas won’t partake in the consumption, but he’ll enjoy watching you, and earnestly listen to your review.

Gabriel 

Brings you chocolates/candy.

(Obviously, he has ideas, plans, and wants of his own, to a dangerous extent but) Gabe at his core just wants to impress you, don’t give him choices because he’s very much a ‘whatever you want’ kinda guy in those scenarios. His ideal date is whatever your ideal date is. 

What do you want for dinner? ‘Whatever you fancy sugar’, your wish: my command.’  Do you prefer the red outfit, or the black? ‘I think you look smokin’ in both, pick whatever you feel good in.’ Do you want pasta or pizza? ‘I want a pizza you. Do you want pasta or pizza?’

Plus, he loves simultaneously using indecisiveness to wind you up and to force you to make decisions for yourself, to voice your own wants and needs.  

Ultimately though, I think his ideal date would be something surprisingly simple. 

Like a coffee date.

Or hot/boozy hot/chocolates and pancakes at a dessert restaurant. 

Tell him about your proudest moments, your favourite everything, your biggest adventures, your fondest dreams, so he can soak you in. 

He’ll tell you about his own escapades, drops some big names, about his early days on earth, and so on. 

Somewhere you can spend hours chitchatting, sharing stories, and getting to know each other, while getting high on sugar and playing footsie under the table. 

Jack

Isn’t sure which is most appropriate or which you would like most, so he brings you all the gifts! Chocolate, flowers, soft toys, you name it! 

But then he gets nervous and thinks it’s too much, so he only gives you the flowers.

Until you’re halfway through your date, when things are just easy and relaxed. He confesses and gives you the other stuff at the end of your date. 

As for the date itself it would be something classic but fun; bowling, mini golf, roller skating. 

If it’s score-based, he won’t be competitive, but also will not let you win. 

If the venue does food, and you’re struggling to pick he’ll order your second choice so the two of you can split and share.

Will find any excuse to try and hold your hand throughout. 

Lucifer 

Does not bring a gift. Come on, he’s all the gift you need. 

Lucifer is not easy to take on a date. (He’s not easy in any regard really.) Especially when you take into account his distaste for all things human.

If he’s earnestly asked you on a date/agreed to a date, then the only salvageable factor is you. No pressure.   

And it's not like he can just fly you away to another galaxy or something, cause you know, human bodies don’t tend to do well in the vacuum of space. 

Plus, he’s so contraire you could spend hours listing ideas and he would bat down every single one. (Secretly loving every moment because he gets to spend time with you, making you laugh as he comes up with more and more ridiculous reasons to reject your ideas). 

Really though, just take him with you on your daily routine, or even like, your ideal day. Let him bitch about all the humans in the grocery store, let him try your favourite foods, him laugh at the kid who dropped their ice cream, and let him watch you geek out at the book/video/hobby store without embarrassment. Just let him experience your true self, while letting him be his true self. 

No policing him, just pure unadulterated freedom with the person he loves.    

Michael 

Brings you chocolates, but not like fancy ones. Adam advised that gifts were customary in human dating culture, but didn’t specify which kind, so he got you a selection of candy bars, the same kind that Adam seems to enjoy. 

Something outdoorsy and active but with a view; Hiking, rock climbing, or even just a long walk on the beach. 

Something where you can find a nice place to settle and watch the clouds and/or stars together. 

If stargazing, he will teach you about the different constellations, their creation, and their stories. 

Will be absolutely enamoured if you already know some of it and are able to have a back-and-forth conversation. 

Adam also tried to teach him some other dating tricks, like fake stretching to put his arm around you, but that seems redundant. If he wants to put his arm around you, he will simply do so. 

Short circuits a little when you lean in closer and rest your head on his chest/shoulder. 

#supernatural angels #supernatural #supernatural lucifer #castiel #jack kline #supernatural gabriel #supernatural michael #spn #spn headcanon #castiel x reader #jack kline x reader #gabriel x reader #michael x reader #lucifer x reader #gilverrwrites

[supremeshrimpy]

courting rituals III

Diasomnia Edition

Summary: Driven by infatuation and love, the boys try and court you in their own ways.

A/N: I’m sorry to say this is the end…of this mini-series. I’m excited to continue writing and with all the positive review, I feel motivated to do so much more. As of now I don’t have anything else planned, so please leave me a request if you want anything specific. Also, sorry if Zebek’s a little long, I have a soft spot for him.

Characters: Malleus Draconia, Lillia VanRouge, Sebek Zigvot

Malleus Draconia (Dragons) :

Dragons are some egotistical creatures, theirs flirting is insults and flattery, however their insults are just a test to see if their potential mate is strong. After Malleus realizes his feelings for you, he’s constantly switching between complimenting you and making fun of you. His compliments are so sweet on the ears while he spits insults out like fire.

“Ah, it brings me joy to see you got rid of that hideous dress, this one suits you much more.”

Dragons are as materialistic as they are egotistical; they like shiny things, why not put shinies on the apple of their eye? As of recently, you notice necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and jewels appear on you counter and you knew it was him. When Malleus saw you wearing the emerald necklace he had left on your counter the night prior, his heart swelled so much. He honestly felt like it would burst.

“That necklace looks gorgeous on you.”

Dragons always want to be right and so does Malleus, even if that means twisting your mind so that you agree with him however he likes when you argue with him. Malleus loves that fire in your eyes when you when you know that you’re right. He wants a future with someone as strong as you; he wants one with you and he knows it.

“You are still intent on arguing with me on this aren’t you, Child of Man.”

Lillia VanRouge (Bats) :

Bats like to follow around and guard whoever they seek as a mate. Lillia is usually found near Malleus’s side however whenever Malleus is off doing his own things, Lillia is found right beside you. While you’re laughing at some dumb joke he made, Lillia is glaring at some students who are taking a look at you.

“Maybe we could go to the library, its too crowded here.”

Bats use sound for lots of thing, one of those things just happen to be for attention grabbing. Lillia was getting annoyed that you were playing more attention to your studies than him. So what could a little squeak do?

“You’re so jumpy, khee hee hee.”

Let me tell you this next one might take you out…nose boops. Bats like to boop each others noses. Picture this, you sitting down eating while studying and suddenly Lillia is standing over you. The second you bring your head up to meet his eyes, he’s right in your face. Boop

“Your face is absolutely adorable, little one.”

Sebek Zigvolt (Crocodile) :

Crocodiles are furious beasts, when they see a mate; they stalk them. Things are differnet with Sebek, he was on a call with his mom the second he figured out his feelings. His mom told him, “You must watch them from afar, figure out the best course of action.” So, Sebek being the mama’s boy he is, he tried that. He’s been watching you walk to class, what you eat, how you study. Of course you caught on, he was so embarrassed he ran away.

“I NEED TO GO ATTEND TO WAKA-SAMA!”

These next two will knock you out, crocodiles will do jaw rubs when passing by a potential mate. I see Lillia becoming very interested in Sebek’s little schoolyard crush and started to bother him about courting you faster. So, when they were on their way back to the Disonmia dorm and Lillia spotted you walking towards them, he knew he had to give Sebek a little push…literally. The second he did, he scurried off in to dorm, leaving Sebek to get flustered and rub his jaw against yours in the heat moment. Sebek then ran off.

“FORGET ABOUT THAT HUMAN!”

Crocodiles blow bubble when they see a mate they want. Sebek would be drinking something while studying with you. You’ll look up after hearing popping noises, only too see Sebek staring at you with a look of pure love. The second he notices you caught him, he chokes on his drink. He’ll start trying to play it cool while his face sits at a cherry red.

“Ahem…do you need help with something, human?”

#malleus draconia #lillia vanrouge #zebek zigvolt #twisted wonderland #twst #twst x reader #malleus x reader #malleus draconia x reader #lillia x reader #lillia vanrouge x reader #sebek x reader #sebek zigvolt x reader

[thedutchess07]

Sim Dump!!

Soooo because I hit 500 TikTok followers, I decided to do my first mini sim dump. So HUGE thank you for everyone supporting me! I'm very new to this stuff lol.

I put a poll on twitter to choose either or, but I went ahead and added both!

Brandi Hagan - Alessandra Casper (in order)

♡ Please tag me if you use my sims! (twitter: dutchessofsims, tiktok: dutchess.of.sims, tumblr: thedutchess07)

♡ Do not claim or reupload my sim as your own.

♡ Gallery ID: D3ADLYPRINCESS (don't judge me lol)

♡ Zip file includes required CC.

♡ 1 outfit included.

♡ FYI: I use Gshade, but if you don't they're still cute without lol. Preset I use is Pearl by Amelie.

♡ Please review CC in folder before adding into your game. I am not responsible for any conflicting sliders or cc for your game.

♡ CC credits to their creators!

Download (Patreon, free)

#sims 4 #sims 4 custom content #sim dump #sims 4 cas #my sims

[comfortfoodcontent]

THE COMFORT FOOD COMICS CANON

Some of you may recall my old website www.comfortfoodcomics.com , where I really wanted to explore that special personal connection to comic books. There are so many comics and everyone has so many opinions and stories relating to the ones they love the most that end up getting extremely personal. I love that aspect of this unique art form. The way certain issues or story arcs crawl into one's brain and soul and stay there forever. The way comics become synonymous with certain memories, time periods, people or places in our lives. I love that. I don't want to read or hear reviews or scholarly, pretentious drivel about the "GREATEST COMICS EVER!!!". What I want is to write and read about those special comics that rise to the top of your thoughts unbidden for a lifetime. Not necessarily the best crafted books ever, but those ones that ride or die with us. The ones that we revisit over and over again. The ones that make us happy and provide excitement and solace and everything in between. Our Comfort Food Comics.

Recently I've been filling some essential longboxes and painfully wracking my brain as to what of my Comfort Food Comics would make the cut to be in these boxes. It's been fun narrowing down which ones bring me that special feeling I described above and adding them to the box. As I go through this journey, I thought I'd blabber a little about it as a personal record of sorts for me. Above you'll find my "Comfort Food Comics Canon" - Dave Shevlin's personal comics canon, the selections that comprise my comics DNA. Quintessentially my shit! I'll continuously update the lists in the graphics above when new or revisited picks make that difficult cut.

Below the cut I wrote a brief bit about each pick. If you want me to specifically expand on the why of a certain choice, please ask and I'll get to it quicker or expand more on it per your request!

Please note these are just the story arcs and single issues that I physically own each issue of that really lend themselves to that format and they are nestled safely in the CFC longbox. Plenty of other OGN's, runs, longer arcs, manga or other formats are also my Comfort Food Comics but don't apply here.

Long Form Stories

New Warriors Vol. 1 #40-42: Mark Bagley and Darick Robertson deliver a gorgeous looking mega epic that takes the Warriors into space and levels up Dick Rider for a spinoff solo series. They actually hyped this story up and released it and Nova #1 in a Marvel Classics Collector's Pack in the 90's. I of course own that.

The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #31-33: THE Marvel Comic. Spider-Man pushes the heavy weight of every problem life throws at him to face his responsibility. The best Lee/Ditko story.

Secret Defenders #9-10: Tom Grindberg inked by Don Hudson is one of the best penciller/inker team-ups ever. Together they made unique magic they never achieved apart. Here they draw Thunderstrike and War Machine in a team-up of 90's replacement heroes vs Nebula. It rules.

Marvel Knights 4 #1-4: Steve McNiven, despite only doing some of this series, it's covers, and some moments in Civil War, is one of my de facto Fantastic Four artists. I also love the hook of the FF going bankrupt and kicked out of their science skyscraper and what happens next. Also that Sue as a teacher, ooowhee!

The Girl Presents: Body Heat #1-3: As a teen in the oughts delving into porn comics of the era, Kevin Taylor was the GOAT. This mini collects a bunch of what I consider to be the best stuff he's ever done.

Thunderbolts Vol. 1 #155-157: My personal highpoint from maybe the best run on Tbolts. A very snarky, fun and titillating Satana is recruited to Luke Cage's merry band of misfits. Kev Walker's best work is on this run.

Detective Comics Vol. 1 #622-624: 622's copy text tells all: "There's a new Batman in Gotham City. His name is Simon Petrarch, he has supernatural powers, and he believes in killing his enemies. What happened to Bruce Wayne? Where is the Batman we all know?" John Ostrander gives us a comic within a comic as a Gotham citizen makes his own comic about Batman. Ostrander didn't get many chances to write Bats, but when he did he killed it. The only Mike McKone art I've ever enjoyed. Highlighted by Dick Sprang doing INSANE covers in 1990 that also serve as covers for the fake comic.

Action Comics #858-863: Superman and The Legion of Super-Heroes! Supes travels to the 31st Century to see it's become a perverted dystopia. Geoff Johns and Gary Frank give us a colorful, action packed blockbuster that firmly reestablishes Superman and the original Legion, as it should be.

Avengers Vol. 1 #358-359: My beloved Bob Harras 90's Jacket Avengers are whisked away to Polemachus to help Arkon and Thundra. The Steve Epting/Tom Palmer art team give us some amazing art here, including the best page of Crystal ever published.

Gen 13 Vol. 2 #13A-13C: Grunge has a dream adventure where he teams up with Archie, Betty, Veronica, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spawn, Bone, Madman, Maxx, Hellboy, Shi, Katchoo and Francine, Monkeyman & O'Brien, Wolverine, Tony Robbins and many more. A 90's comic industry meta joke romp.

Green Lantern Vol. 3 #48-55: Emerald Twilight/New Dawn. Hal Jordan's fall into Parallax and the debut of Kyle Rayner. Kyle is my favorite DC character and this is in contention for my favorite DC story. It's biggest failing is it is so rushed (I delve deep into why here), but amidst that fast paced chaos, DC gets it's own Magneto and it's own Spider-Man. Just the best!

The Amazing Spider-Man #498-500: Spidey is magically cast adrift outside of time. But in order to get back, he needs to relive every experience he’s ever had as he climbs his own timeline. So much to love here - Last Stand Spidey, glimpses of his whole history, John Romita Sr. drawing a reunion with Uncle Ben. The pinnacle of the JMS and JR Jr. run.

First Knife aka Protector #1-5: Arguably the best world building I've ever come across in comics. Inspired sci-fi realism story blended with Artyom Trakhanov's otherworldly, surrealist, almost cubism like style.

The Incredible Hulk Vol. 1 #402-404: Gary Frank's 90's style he employed with Marvel UK and this Hulk run is about as good as comic art could possibly get. I hate that he decided to add about a billion more lines to his gorgeous, clean art. Here he gets to draw Hulk's mindscape of villains, Juggernaut, Red Skull, and the 90's Harras Avengers. Great bits with them in these issues. God, it is good! (It drives me insane though they color Sersi correctly red in 403, then botch it and color her green in 404! ARGHH!!)

JLA Volume 1 #10-14: Rock of Ages! The best Justice League story. Morrison blends every bit of 90's DCU with his own crazy creative mind to create an alltimer. Almost a proto Final Crisis, this one is more like the awesome Saturday Morning Cartoon version of that story.

Journey into Mystery Vol. 1 #652-655: Kathryn Immonen, one of comics' most underrated creators, gave us an all too brief Sif solo book here that was one of the best Marvel books ever. This is the highlight of that run. In this one we get a Sif and Beta Ray Bill romance/horror story that meshes the new status quo of the time with their past relationship.

Sabretooth Vol. 1 #1-4: Love Sabes, love Hama, and love obscure mutant Birdy, who essentially only ever got play in this mini. This is the 90's direct to VHS action movie starring Sabretooth, Birdy, Wolverine, Mystique and Graydon Creed.

Sandman Vol. 2 #21-28: The best story in Neil Gaiman's masterpiece. The introduction of The Endless followed by Lucifer abandoning Hell and getting his revenge on Dream by giving him the key and telling him to deal with it. Gaiman's clever takes on Gods and mythology are done so well here.

Daredevil Vol. 1 #275-276: A tie in to Acts of Vengeance, my favorite Marvel Event, during my favorite run on Daredevil. That's right, this is my favorite DD story. Batshit insanity as Ol Hornhead, some of the Inhumans, and an animal rights revolutionary battle an old Ultron robot that grapples with his own existence as he kidnaps a genetically altered, indestructible bimbo who is wrestling with the same issues. Ann Nocenti man, nobody did it better.

New Avengers Vol. 1 #1-6: When I was getting back into comics in my teens after taking a long time off, this was maybe the first title I bought monthly. Spider-Man and Wolverine....AVENGERS??? The roster, the David Finch art, the whirlwind breakout to Avengers Tower to the Savage Land, all of it hooked me back in so hard. This is the clear start of the Modern Marvel Universe as we know it. I was fully on board. Nowadays I know it spits in the face of what Avengers always was and should be; and it's filled with annoying Bendis continuity mistakes and terrible dialogue, but damn I love it regardless.

Thunderstrike Vol. 1 #4-6: I could put the entire run on Thunderstrike on this list (I kinda did!) but this is my favorite arc of his short lived title. Spider-Man and Eric team up for some weird Blackwulf(remember him) and SHIELD shenanigans. Frenz's art here is amazing and we have the best jokey covers during this arc.

The Infinity Gauntlet #1-6: Starlin, Perez and Lim continue the development of Thanos into one of Marvel's first event books. You'd expect it to be a big, dumb romp but it's really an entertaining 90's Marvel snapshot with loads of tiny spectacular character moments, huge stakes, and quiet emotional depth.

Gen 13: Magical Drama Queen Roxy: As much as I love the start of Gen 13 with J. Scott Campbell and Jim Lee, Adam Warren was the best to ever work on this team. This is a great character study of Freefall as we get a scathing parody of just about everything pop culture in the late 90's in that charming, hilarious way only Warren can do.

Wolverine Vol. 2 #38-42: Storm! Albert and Elsie-Dee! Sabretooth! Lady Deathstrike! Jubilee! Forge! The Reavers! Cable! Nick Fury! All by Larry Hama and Marc Silvestri. Easily the best Wolverine comics ever made.

Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1 #118-120: My favorite Ultimate Spidey story. The gang plus Johnny Storm and Iceman go to beach for a fun night out and Mutant shenanigans occur. This is sort of a precursor to the full house status quo of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man later, which I love dearly. I just love this big cast of teens hanging out and the fun that comes from it.

Green Lantern Vol. 3 #63-64: Parallax returns to get his ring back from Kyle and Kyle gets Hal's old Justice League pals back together to stop him.

Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 2 #290-294: The Legion vs Darkseid and his Servants, back when using a modern day villain against the Legion was a first. This is your big boy, the best of the best. Levitz and Giffen leveling up to reach their Legend status.

Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1 #33-38: Objectively this is probably the best story Bendis ever does with Ultimate Spidey. The Venom suit, Eddie Brock Jr., Peter's and Eddie's parents and the legacy they left their children - it's all wonderful stuff done in such a dour, moody way.

Shadow of the Batman (1985) #1-5: Baxter Stock reprints of primarily Steve Englehart's legendary Batman run with some Len Wein and some short Marshall Rogers extras. 40 pages no ads chock full of Walt Simonson, Al Milgrom, Rogers and Terry Austin art. All with new beautiful painted covers by Rogers. For me, this is the only way to experience this run.

Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #142-143: Dabney Donovan, Cadmus mad scientist, creates a miniature planet full of "atomic liquid" denizens who are shaped by outside stimuli, in this case, horror films, which spawns a race of Jack Kirby's Universal Monsters who start to cause trouble for Jimmy Olsen and Superman, before they save the day and Superman replaces the horror films with the musical, Oklahoma! King Kirby everybody!

Batman Vol. 1 #676-681: Batman R.I.P. My favorite Bats story of all time. The culmination of Morrison's weird and wacky attempt to take the character’s entire publishing history, say everything happened, and somehow reconcile that all together and show us what Batman would really be like - The world’s greatest superhero, an extremely multifaceted man at the top of his game and surrounded by a support net of people inspired by him who he loves, always ten steps ahead of any villain with contingencies for everything.

Superman Strength #1-3: My favorite Superman story. Scott McCloud, Aluir Amancio and Terry Austin give us a tale of what makes Superman so strong. It's not his powers, it's his inner strength, because he is centered and self assured from being raised by such formative, ethical, and truly good parents. That source of strength is contrasted by relatable everyman criminal, John “Fido” Pollock, the main villain here who had the exact opposite in life. I can't do it justice here, it needs to be read.

Daredevil Vol. 1 #319-325: Fall From Grace. Years ago I read the 90's trade of this story mid November and fell in love. So every November, every Thanksgiving is Daredevil season for me. Daredevil in his new suit goes through a gauntlet of big name guest stars every issue as well as the return of Elektra from Frank Miller's mountain purgatory. This story is bursting with raw, messy enthusiasm that doesn't always work but you feel that soul and love put in and get swept away by it. Although this story is better in trade with slight edits and added pages, it NEEDED to be here for me, plus I get a fold out awesome poster this way and I have it in the format of yet another rad 90's Collector's Pack.

Thor Vol. 1 #337-340: Walter Simonson and Beta Ray Bill's debut on Thor! This one is up there with Spider-Man #31-33 as the best story Marvel has ever put out. Simonson's Thor run is arguably the best run in comics and this opening salvo is S-Tier writing and art every single page.

Detective Comics Vol. 1 #592-593: Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle's run on Detective is a real highpoint for Batman. He described this Detective run as ” We kind of handled what Batman did on his nights off from Batman monthly.” and I think that’s so perfect. Here is all the creepy, strange, fantastical events that take place in the dingy corners of Gotham City when Batman isn’t being a Justice League member superhero. No story represents that vibe better than this two parter with weird two-parter about a fear based hallucination causing cannibal.

Fantastic Four Vol. 1 #347-349: This is my top Fantastic Four story. I never had this one growing up but we did have the trading card when I was like 4 or 5 and this was a truly mythical thing I needed to experience. Years later when I was a preteen I stole my mom's credit card and bought these issues of the internet. It did not dissapoint. The New Fantastic Four team of Wolvie, Spidey, Grey Hulk and Danny Ketch Ghost Rider will always be the coolest thing they ever did. Walt Simonson & Art Adams, how do you possibly get better than that?

Wolverine Vol. 3 #73-74: Every day of Wolverine's week is expressed in one panel showing how he has his own solo book, how he is in X-Men, how he is in X-Force, how he is cameoing in everyone else's book, etc which eventually ends with him talking to Spider-Man in a bar. It's such a fun meta way of showing how overused he is and Aaron uses it as a story point that maybe the old man is tired and needs a rest. There's also a shitty Daniel Way story in these issues but skip that.

Batman vs Predator #1-3: This has no right being as exceptional as it is. Dave Gibbons writes and BOTH Kubert brothers are on art and they skip any irony or idiocy and give us a played straight story of what happens when a Yautja drops into Gotham City. SO GOOD!

Final Crisis: Superman Beyond 3D #1-2: Superman develop 4D-vision and teams with a group of Multiversal analogues of himself to fight against a reality consuming evil vampire Monitor, Mandrakk. Their combined powers allow Superman to merge into the Superman Colossus, a giant thought robot to combat the Dark Monitor in the Monitor’s world, in a self assembling hyper story that is alive and adapts around them. A thoughtful meta narrative about the power of stories, about creators and the ongoing real life comic industry.

Luke Cage, Hero For Hire Vol. 1 #8-9: Luke Cage invades Doom's Latverian castle to get the $200 bucks he owes him. Spawning legendary one liners such as: "Where's my money, Honey?" and "Ha ha ha ha!, You are the ultimate, Cage!"

Invincible #63-64: Usually I'm not a fan of all the bloody stupidly absurd violence in Invincible, but Atom Eve vs Conquest goes hard.

Axis: Hobgoblin #1-3: Roderick Kingsley Hobgoblin is my fave Spidey villain and this mini set when he was magically inverted into being an opportunistic brand pushing hero is loads of fun with very nice art by Javier Rodriguez.

Detective Comics Vol. 1 #604-607: MUDPACK! Another Grant/Breyfogle Detective gem. The OG Clayface, who was just an old actor with some masks, recruits every subsequent Clayface that had appeared over the years to level up and take down Bats. Looker from the Outsiders guest stars to help Batman.

Thor Vol. 1 #168-169: Thor and Galactus sit down together in space to talk and Big G gives us his origin. A Stan and Jack classic.

Adventure Comics Vol. #369-370: MORDRU! His first appearance in a wonderful story. The Legion represents a dream of a brighter future all about science, progress, youth and evolution all done through a massive group of selfless, heroic kids all from different planets and races that work together as one. Mordru is the perfect Legion villain because he is the diametric opposite of all that. He is an ancient singular wizard from the past that only cares about himself and his own needs that uses evil dark magic to further his goals.

Archie vs Predator #1-4: I don't care for Alex De Campi as a creator, and I care even less for her as a person. This story succeeds in spite of her, as her questionable decisions, poor dialogue and bizarre and truly stupid ending try their hardest to ruin this. Honestly, a monkey could've written the plot for this and I'd still be on board as I just need a Yautja hunting the Archie crew with all the good vibes classic Archie comics provide. Artist Fernando Ruiz thankfully provides just that saving this crossover and making it one of my faves. He is the true heavy lifting star here and he really makes this thing work retaining the humor and idyllic, innocent charm of Archie Comics and blending it with the bloody action and gore of a Predator story. Further proof he is the key ingredient here is the sequel they do to this without him is utterly forgettable nonsense.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Vol. 1 #65-68: The best Joker story ever. J.M. DeMatteis tells the tale of Batman dying, which causes the Joker to go sane and what happens next.

Spider-Man: Web of Death - Amazing Spider-Man #397-398 and Spectacular Spider-Man #220-221: DeMatteis, DeFalco, Bagley, Buscema, Sienkiewicz! Easily the best Doctor Octopus story and constantly battling in my head for best Spider-Man story. Spider-Man is dying and who better to save him than his self proclaimed greatest foe, Doc Ock. A tragically poignant tale with expert characterization. Oh also it has Kaine and Stunner and Mary Jane announcing she's pregnant, so you know, it's just the best.

X-Men Vol. 2 #188-193: Rogue assembles a hand picked team to take on the new and mysterious Children of the Vault. Mike Carey's debut story arc with Chris Bachalo. This coincided with a linewide relaunch and as a newly graduated high school teen, it was a perfect personal jumping on point. Little did I know I was getting in on maybe the second best run on X-Men ever.

Kraven's Last Hunt - Web of Spider-Man #31–32, The Amazing Spider-Man #293–294, and Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #131–132: I've tried over and over again as a cynical critic to find ways to NOT hail this one as an alltimer classic, but try as I might, it is one of those much lauded stories that actually are indeed alltimer classics. DeMatteis, Zeck and McLeod dust off old lame Kraven, plug him into a sequel to a Captain America/Spidey Marvel Team-Up issue, and somehow make a masterpiece.

Wolverine Vol. 2 #7-8: Joe Fixit Hulk and Patch Wolverine have to team up in Madripoor by Chris Claremont and Big John Buscema. Awesome.

Thor vol. 1 #447-448: Eric Masterson Thor had such a fun little friendship with The Absorbing Man. In this one Absorbing Man's love, Titania, wants to go back to crime so he calls Eric to stage a fake rumble to trick and pacify her. But things go sideways when Spider-Man gets involved.

Superman: Blackout - Action Comics Vol 1 #671, Adventures of Superman Vol 1 #484-485, Superman Vol 2 62, Superman: The Man of Steel Vol 1 6: I wrote more in-depth on this one here. Superman loses his memory on a tropical island and is to be wed to the island princess. A perfect slice of the amazing Triangle Era with killer art from Jurgens and The Bog.

Superman/Batman Vol. 1 #60-61: A dreamworld where the Justice League and the Teen Titans and their villains get amalgamated with killer art by Francis Manapul.

Rival Schools #1-2: I love Capcom's video game Rival Schools. I love comic creator Corey Lewis. Put them together and you get just about the perfect comic made just for me. The only negative is they never published issue 3.

Convergence: Shazam #1-2: After reading through all of the Golden age Fawcett Captain Marvel comics, I've come to regard DC's version of him as a bit of a letdown. I'm always searching for that modern day high I got from those classic tales. This series by the S-Tier creative team of Jeff Parker and Doc Shaner is the closest I've ever gotten to that feeling again.

The Demon Vol. 3 #26-29: Dwayne McDuffie and Val Semeiks deliver us one of the smartest, funniest, pull no punches parody of American politics as Etrigan runs for President. This one is in contention as my favorite DC Comics story of all time.

X-Men: The Asgardian Wars - New Mutants Special & Uncanny X-Men Annual #9: The New Mutants and Storm get transported to Asgard and integrated into their mythology and culture. The X-Men eventually to join to get them back. I don't know why but the combo of Asgard and the X-Men goes together better than sea salt and caramel. Easily my favorite X-Men story. Another Art Adams masterpiece.

New X-Men Vol. 2 #42-42: Chris Yost and Craig Kyle's run on New X-Men is in my Top 10 for Marvel and this quiet story set in between two massive upheavals gives us a genuine tale of teen emotion, trauma and sweetness with inspiring and whimsical art by Skottie Young. I love these issues so godamn much.

Ben Reilly: Spider-Man #1-5: In an era of (GOOD LORD WHY AND HOW?!) 20 or so years of pretty terrible Spider-Man comics, Marvel blessed us by getting J.M. DeMatteis to revisit Ben Reilly for an untold tale perfectly nestled during his brief time as Spider-Man. I won't spoil it but he manages to take a forgotten, height of excess 90's character and give them a poignant, spectacular story juxtaposed against Ben, in the usual psychology filled DeMatteis way.

Justice League United #11-16: A very brief magnificent run where Stargirl, Equinox, Animal Man and Alanna Strange recruit whoever they need from across the DC Universe to do the job they need to do. This was a title DC should have published in perpetuity but alas it barely survived two arcs. Still some of the best ever done by Jeff Parker, Travel Foreman and more. Check out the digital only "Sneak Peek" they released to start this series. Comics don't get much better than that.

Spider-Man: Revelations - Astonishing Spider-Man(UK) #56-57: Revelations is a Top 10 Spider-Man story and I could rave about it all day. The return of Norman Osborn in a full team effort by all the writers, editors and artists, it's a perfect ending to The Clone Saga and an amazing jumping off point for the Spidey line. But why a UK reprint of the story in here? Well besides the new exclusive covers, #57 contains a fantastic written epilogue by Peter Parker only published here.

Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #17-18: It's honestly hard to try to think of a better duo in comics than Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz. Here we get them making SUCH solid little story revisiting aspects of their run on Amazing with some Doc Ock thrown in. There's nothing flashy or important here but it's just the pinnacle of what Spider-Man comics should be.

John Constantine, Hellblazer #7-8: A haunting, chilling tale of the love between a fishmonger and a mermaid and the disparity between their perceptions of the romance. This one doesn't really "comfort" me but it's so creative and sweet as well as disgusting and terrifying, and that's why it sticks with me so much.

Beyond #1-6: McDuffie never really made a bad comic during his all too short life. This one absolutely RULES! The "Beyonder" gives us a new Secret War and McDuffie throws together some 2000s underused Marvel characters(at the time) in The Hood, Al Kraven, Gravity and the Mac Gargan Venom (Still the only time the character actually used a scorpion tail with the Symbiote. How was that not a permanent thing?) alongside some similarly underused classic characters in Hank Pym, Firebird, Medusa and the Michael Collins Deathlok. A perfect example of "there are no bad characters, just bad writers".

Masters of the Universe Vol. 1 #1-3: Before the cartoon and the general established lore of He-Man was established, DC Comics was able to publish a few stories where they sort of filled in their own version of that mythology. They went with more of a Conan/barbarian serious style and I find that take so cool.

Spider-Man: The Lost Years #0-3: Arguably the best "Spider-Man" comic ever. DeMatteis and John Romita Jr. just GO SO HARD giving us a gritty and deep story of Ben Reilly, Kaine and all the other people caught up in their tragic lives on the road.

Dark Horse Extra #1-7: These were big foldup like 4 pages newspaper comics. Madman, Concrete, a little of everything Dark Horse published. The Madman story is a treat(and recently reprinted in the Library Editions!). But the draw here for me is a fun Art Adams Monkeyman and O'Brien story only published here.

Magneto Vol. 4 #1-4: An earnest psychological exploration of all the various personalities Magneto has displayed throughout his comic history in the usual DeMatteis way. That it's done in a genuinely well told story set during his time as the New Mutants Headmaster is just a bonus.

Young Justice (2011) #20-25: I was a fan of the Young Justice cartoon when it came out and recently watched the entirety of the series and found myself falling deeply in love with Greg Weisman's version of the DC Universe. This tie-in series swiveled from shallow kid's comic to fun fill in the gaps for the show. But no arc was ever as deep or essential as this one which gave us a great prequel set before Season 2 expanding and fleshing out the new cast and the post time skip dynamics. AMAZING Nightwing moments, Brainiac, Weisman baby Kylstar, a HUGE cast and so so much more all with wonderful art by Christopher Jones.

Avengers: Ultron Forever: Al Ewing and Alan Davis give us a time twisting tale reminiscent of Avengers Forever as a time plucked team of modern day Vision and Black Widow, future Danielle Cage Captain America, just a little future Jane Foster Thor, the end of Simonson's run Thor, Jim Rhodes Iron Man, and the unrefined original Hulk take on future All Father Ultron.

Green Lantern Vol. 3 #146-150: Judd Winick's time with Kyle Rayner is a real mixed bag for me. Winick tended to write everyone like they were on a 90's sitcom all desperately trying to be the youngest, coolest, hippest person in the room often to the detriment of the story they were in. But there is no denying that this arc really sings. Kyle gets godlike powers and and helps his friends and the world in a revitalization of the GL line, clashes with Superman, chats with Alan Scott, and finally meets his real Dad.

Action Comics Vol. 2 #36-39: Besides Morrison, the only other time I enjoyed New 52 Superman was Greg Pak's brief time with the character. In this one he returns to Smallville to find it a warped, zombie nightmare dream world with an otherworldly tentacled horror possessing Lana Lang. A great character study of Clark wrapped in a horror story.

The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #315-317: You can't beat Michelinie and McFarlane together, especially when Venom was involved. This is the second ever Venom story and to me the best ever done with the character. Venom is a charming, funny madman who poses a real terrifying threat to Peter. This is also one of the few stories that actually uses the relationship between the Symbiote and Peter.

Detective Comics #456-457: These are here for the Elongated Man backup stories. The plot involves Ralph getting kidnapped and his wife Sue, the superior character, takes center stage as Elongated Woman. It's as extremely silly and fun as you'd expect. The art is by Kurt Schaffenberger and he makes Sue look so damn cute. I don't know if anyone has ever been better at drawing women in comics than Schaffenberger.

Superman/Batman #79-80: At the time this was like the first mention of DC One Million in years and it was such a delight to see a return to that era and it's wonderful characters. There's a two page spread in here of the time traveling villain bouncing around time and seeing the various Superman/Batman teams of thos eras from throughout DC publishing history and it brings SO much magical comics comfort to me. It's so cool. Chris Roberson, even with such a small sampling, is one of the best Superman writers ever.

Spider-Girl Vol. 1 #96-100: I previously had just #100 on this list because that issue is an oversized anniversary special featuring the amazing climax to this storyline AS WELL AS a reprint of issues #27 and #53, two of the best single issues in the run. But that';s not all you also get a cover gallery, a Spider-Girl villains section, and character info file pin-ups from previous issues. Obviously one of the best single issue packages ever. But I recently reread the entire tale preceding this and realized that one of my favorite moments ever in comics, Hobgoblin escaping from jail in his MC2 comic debut, was from this same story arc in #97. And it's not just those issues, the entire story arc has it all, it's a PACKED celebration of this entire legendary series and the Spider-Man franchise as a whole.

Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1 #97-105: I was kind of shocked how much Ultimate Spider-Man is making the cut for these CFC boxes. For years I had disregarded it as a thing in my past and as just more Bendis nonsense. I reread all of it in 2023 and was so happy to see I still love it as an adult and A TON of it still holds up, just as I remember, giving me those same comfort food feelings I felt then. I was OBSESSED with it as a teen and it was the book I kept picking up ravenously as I got through high school and entered adulthood. I have vivid memories of buying these issues from my local shop my first year of college. I remember I hated the idea of an Ultimate Clone Saga but was quickly proven wrong as every single issue had a MIND BLOWING final reveal that just kept ramping up the action and stakes. Rereading it now, even though it's one of the longer arcs in the run, it's surprisingly not too decompressed like the usual Bendis story, and delivers some great story moments that radically smash the status quo for the better. I also really enjoy issue #100 with it's extras celebrating the entire run up to that point.

Silk Vol. 3 #1-5: Maybe it's because Maurene Goo is a successful novelist, but this series has such a professional polish to it that is lacking a lot in comics. The writing is so on point from the overall plot, to the snarky jokes, to the character interplay, to Cindy's inner monologue; all masterful work that entertains in such a charming way. This series also feels so additive to Cindy's little world as well as the Marvel Universe as a whole with new frenemy Saya Ishii and her familial ties. Takeshi Miyazawa is an artist that I've yet to find a line drawn by him I don't enjoy. I truly wish Goo was writing a long ongoing for Silk.

Darkwing Duck (Boom! Studios) #5-8: Negaduck and Magica De Spell team up to take down Darkwing by bringing all the Darkwings from across the Multiverse together. All capped off by the return of Paddywhack. This is my favorite Darkwing Duck story ever across all DD media. It has everything!!

Daredevil Vol. 1 #254-256: I'll be honest, it's extremely difficult to not just place the entirety of Ann Nocenti's Daredevil run in these boxes. This is another alltimer in a run of alltimers here with the introduction of Typhoid Mary and the brutal, toxic relationship her and DD share. Nocenti's dialogue, inner monologues and character actions are so weird but also so natural, so REAL!! I absolutely love how she translates manic, fractured human behavior and the messy gross truths of real life into the usually fine tuned scripting of superhero comics.

X-Force Vol. 3 #7-10: Craig Kyle and Chris Yost rank only behind Claremont and Mike Carey as the best X-Men writers ever for me. We didn't know how good we had it with them, as they banged out incredible story after incredible story bouncing around the X-Franchise over the years. I loved this messy, violent X-Force relaunch they helmed. It took the best bits of their New X-Men work prior and blended it with decades of past X continuity; dug up and given fresh new paint with some of the most staggering stakes the mutants ever faced. This arc was my favorite of the series. There's some wonderful New X-Men kids content here with some amazing X-23 and Elixir character work. There was such good development for all the members really, as well as the fun as hell introduction of Domino and Vanisher to the team. Each issue had a different character giving a narration inner monologue that felt so character authentic. Yost and Kyle always really nailed staying true to how each character spoke, acted and even thought. I deeply miss that. Mike Choi was an artist I loved back then and it was great to see him continue his work with X-23 here. This arc is probably his finest hour.

Black Adam: The Dark Age #1-6: I was such a sucker for the early Oughts development of Black Adam, usually by Geoff Johns and his stellar work throughout JSA and 52(We don't talk about World War 3). But as great as Johns' work with Adam is, I always feel he truly believes the guy is a hero, sure he's got his problems but he will always be the hero when Johns writes him. For my money, Adam is DC's Dr. Doom instead. They are both noble, royal souls that live by some absurd code of honor and are capable of truly heroic acts, but no matter what, WAYYY deep deep down, they are vain, bitter shitheads more in love with themselves than ever truly being the people they claim to be. And really, that's why we love them so much because they are the same messy people we are filled with all the shades of grey. Peter Tomasi's handle on Adam in this series is exactly that, and it's why this series is so damn fun. Well, that and Doug Mahnke's absolutely fantastic art. Mahnke has been spinning gold for 3 decades now but this may be the pinnacle of his career. This is also one of those rare miniseries that isnt trying to be some new reader friendly, evergeen, prestige collection that is sold forever. This is a series that will ABSOLUTELY lose you if you werent reading DC Comics weekly for the years prior as it drops you in and assumes you know all the events and stories and character relationships Adam has been dealing with. It also has no concrete ending, as all types of dangling plot threads are teased for the future, wherever they may pop up. I LOVE stories like this. In the age we live in now, everything has to be new reader friendly or tie in to a movie or lead into a new series or stand alone so we can sell the collected edition. This is real superhero comics, a story that exists in the LIVING, BREATHING DC Universe between all the events and ongoings and everything else. Just a continuing piece of the woven tapestry of the magic that is these decades old superhero universes. I MISS THIS! Oh, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the comedy gold of "Chocolate Egg Cream". One of the best comic moments ever.

Spider-Man: Grim Hunt - The Kraven Saga & Amazing Spider-Man #634-637: Since One More Day permanently ruined Spider-Man comics, I can think of only ONE truly great Spider-Man story that has been published and Grim Hunt is it. Joe Kelly is one of Spidey's best scribes ever and he weaves such a dark, thrilling tale of the resurrection of Kraven the Hunter, that no matter how much I SHOULD hate it, I ended up loving it. Kelly has such a great handle on the Kraven family's characterization all the way to the Chameleon and it's so fun seeing them all play off each other. Kaine, the Kravinoffs, the Spider-Women, hell even "Ezekiel"; he utilizes them all brilliantly. He writes a "dark" Spider-Man that somehow doesn't make you cringe. Michael Lark and Marco Checchetto's art is gorgeous and sets the mood so well. It's baffling, TRULY BAFFLING that this story ends up an alltimer, BUT IT DOES! A bonus in these issues is they all have a backup story of Kaine and Kraven having their own Kraven's Last Hunt back in the day by J.M. DeMatteis and Max Fiumara. It is an exceptional story, as expected of DeMatteis, but WOW! These issues all together represent some of the best ever published for Spidey.

X-Men: Pixie Strikes Back: I am in love with Kathryn Immonen's writing. She writes in a way that's very similar to Ann Nocenti, as I described above. It's a bit more fun, more entertaining but may be even more manic and strange than Nocenti. Immonen is WEIRD and I love it. Everything she writes feels so real. Have you ever overhead a conversation in public and you only hear snippets? You have no context, no understanding of the people or the meaning behind what they're saying. Sure, you may get pieces of what they say or follow some of it so you think you know, but you don't truly know. You're stepping in mid way through, hearing a slice of these people's lives. You're an observer, not a real participant. This is how Kathryn Immonen writes. This is not a perfectly crafted piece of prose manufactured for the entertainment and understanding of the reader to sell a product. This is true writing of the characters as if they are real, as if you are overhearing and getting a glimpse of their lives. A perfect example of this is when Mercury and Armor talk about the inane nonsense of Big Bird and Sesame Street while crawling through a duct escaping from being kidnapped by demons. Kathryn Immonen IS MAGIC. She opens a scrying pool into another reality for the briefest of moments so we can interact with Pixie and the New X-Men kids for a few issues. I deeply treasure the opportunity to experience that magic.

Ant-Man Vol. 2 #1-5: Zeb Wells gives us an endearing, evergreen story about the lovable "loser" that's truly a hero. Dylan Burnett’s art is dynamic and excels at facial expressions that add to the story in such a special way. Colorist Mike Spicer makes said art POP in such a way that you feel like you’re a kid at the grocery store filling a plastic bag with every bright, sweet and sour bulk candy they have to offer. It smacks you in the face and stays with you. The story relies on obscure past continuity while moving things forward, takes you on a tour of the entire Marvel Universe and hits on movie synergy while not being beholden to it. This is an alltimer.

Black Widow and The Marvel Girls #1-4: If Paul Tobin's name is on a comic, you're gonna have a good time. Eternal law of the universe right there and especially for this series perfectly crafted for all ages from the most devoted Marvel Zombie to the person who's never read a comic. Widow teams up with The Enchantress, Wasp, Carol Danvers and Storm all in one off stories throughout an ambiguous Marvel history with art by some of my favorites like Salva Espin, Takeshi Miyazawa, and Jacopo Camagni.

Avengers Vol.1 #256-257: Roger Stern's run with John Buscema and Tom Palmer is my favorite Avengers run and issue 257 where we get a peek into a day at Avengers Mansion where Black Knight works out, The Wasp wears skimpy 80's workout gear, Hercules proudly rejoins, Starfox tries to explain he's not creepy, and Wasp is later elected Avengers Leader has ALWAYS stood out to me as MY issue of Avengers. The larger continuing plot where the team ventures to The Savage Land to fight Terminus alongside Ka-Zar and Shanna(complete in an even skimpier outfit than Jan), AS WELL as Monica Rambeau in space vs Nebula is just an added bonus.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #16-20: Venom!!! The magic of Batman is how he works in literally any story you place him. From the Batgod of Morrison to the drug addicted all too real human of this one. I LOVE this take on a very relatable, new to the job Bats who fails to save a little girl so he ends up juicing so it won't happen again. Sadly this leads him to become a sad, savage, pathetic wretch of a man and we must witness the depths he falls to and his eventual climb back to the top. The continued development of Santa Prisca and the debut of the drug Venom are nice nerd bonuses to this brutal tale of men and the power they seek and how the misuse of said power can make them monsters. There's some LEGENDARY art in these issues from the absurd dream team assemblage of Trevor Von Eeden, Russell Braun, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Steve Oliff.

Girl Crazy #1-3: When I first started reading this Gilbert Hernandez story I was so damn lost, utterly bewildered, massively confused but also titillated and intrigued! The art was some of the cleanest, most beautiful I'd ever seen, and the manic story peppered with 1950's, jungle and future aesthetics forced me to read on! I'm glad I did as the biting commentary, genius science fiction and heaving breasts all fell into place just like Kitten's fake boobs fell into place into her butt. I ended up LOVING the wild and wacky coming of age story revolving around death, freedom, sisterhood, resurrection and most importantly of all not being afraid of expressing your true self.

Titans Sell-Out Special!, New Titans #93: Titans Sell Out!!! I really enjoy this era of team of New Titans. In a money pinch and on a break in Hollywood, the Titans license their images to the movie and merchandising industry which results in an embarrassing The Teeny Titans cartoon they can't stand. It's incredibly entertaining as they actually devote part of the comic to the cartoon, then show us the comic adaptation of the cartoon. It's extremely funny and meta and I love every instance we got of The Teeny Titans. Both of these issues also contain some rare Adam Hughes art, first as a photo scrapbook of their visit to Hollywood then as a parody of an erotic adult magazine.

Classic X-Men #41-42: This gives me some of the phenomenal Dark Phoenix storyline issues but the actual main reason these are in the CFC Canon is the chilling and brutal backup stories featuring Mr. Sinister. This is right before the new backup material in Classic X-Men was stopped altogether as well as Claremont's departure from the X-books. It's a frequently overlooked story that starts to dig into the actual origin and story of what Claremont actually wanted to do with Sinister. Here we see Sinister in control of the orphanage where Cyclops is as a boy and his constant manipulation of his life. It's a truly horrifying and unsettling story filled with so much pathos and development for Scott. Some of Claremont's best work was these backup stories. It's always been cool to me that while Claremont hints at things here he never puts in something truly contradictory or set in stone to his original vision for Sinister, so this story isn't ignored or explained away later, it's woven into continuity just from a different angle.

X-Men Archives Featuring Captain Britain #1-7: A 90's deluxe reprint series of Captain Britain's Marvel UK adventures by Dave Thorpe, Alan Moore and Alan Davis. Sometimes I honestly think the Jasper's Warp storyline that makes up most of this series may be the best Marvel storyline of all time. It's certainly always up for contention as my favorite comic story of all time. It has everything that makes comics great. Thorpe and Davis' initial Multiverse setup and relaunch of the character starts off so additive with the iconic costume redesign and introduction of Jim Jaspers and Saturnyne. It soon gets real dumb, real fast but thankfully some behind the scenes drama led to Thorpe leaving and a young and wildly creative non jaded Alan Moore coming on the book. He takes the ingredients Thorpe bundled together and turns them into unparalleled fine dining. Without missing a step, it becomes a dark sci-fi comic alltimer, almost a proto version of all the stories Moore does after this. All the usual brilliant Moore tropes, hell all of the more nuanced and mature storytelling comics tropes from the 80's and up are done here in such a masterful way. It's always shocking to me this one is still quietly underrated as it's influence is still being felt in media today. The magic is it's not dated and it is in many aspects way better than all the similar stories done after. I remember reading this one my first year of college and being blown away, my mind now open to how truly amazing comics could be. I'm pleased to see that feeling hasn't gone away upon rereads. GOD, IT'S GOOD!!

Magik Vol. 1 #1-4: When I got back into comics in my late teens, back before I first knew what a torrent was, wayyyy before readcomiconline existed, all my comic reading was done by whatever vestiges of the 90's survived one family move or whatever I'd find in a bookstore. I'd fallen in love with the X-Men fully and got by with whatever trades were coming out but when I saw a footnote in an issue about a random Magik series I never knew existed, I hopped online and it was one of my first ever online comic purchases as a teen. Newkadia I believe. Magik has always been a fave of mine, really only getting beat out by Rogue, Wolvie and Mags as my favorite X character. I couldn't believe such an obscure character really got her own mini back then. Now, Claremont always made the X-Men kinky and full of suffering but JESUS, this mini cranked it up to 11. It's a brutal and horrifying tale but it is also DEEPLY AWESOME!! Ilyana is FUCKED UP. There's so much depth to her character provided here that makes her such a fascinating and complex character. I love her and this series so damn much.

New Mutants Vol. 1 #18-20: In the early Oughts I was reading New Mutants for the first time as they released New Mutants Classic trades. The sporadic releases of the first two volumes with Bob McLeod's adequate but largely un-fantastic work on the series was fine, but I found myself a bit bored by it all. When the third volume finally came out with Bill Sienkiewicz's work my mind exploded. Head, gone. Bits of brain matter everywhere. Suddenly this cookie cutter series that sometimes put me to sleep was a transcendent work of art pushing the boundaries of the medium. WHAT??? The Demon Bear Saga here is the definite high point of the run and the entire volume. I can't even count how many times I've pored over the art in these ones. The weird ass story from Claremont combined with the experimental art by Sienkiewicz blend so well to make this alltimer.

Books of Magic Vol. 1 #1-4: I got this story in trade form along with all of Sandman from my oldest brother back when I was 18 or so and I'll be forever grateful that he opened up such a world to me. At that point I hadn't really gotten into much of DC besides the usual classics and this gave me a peek into how charming and special and full of depth the DCU was. This is the story JK Rowling ripped off for Harry Potter where a young bespectacled, black haired boy is revealed to be a magical chosen one and suddenly leaves his normal British life behind and is swept off to the world of magic. I didn't know many of the worlds and characters presented within when I first read this but I was soon captivated by how amazingly cool the magic side of DC was, and in turn this led me to becoming a full on DC fan for life hunting down more and more comics from this dark, mysterious corner of that universe. This is an extremely special one that has stuck with me for years as I often find myself thinking about random panels from it such as the Helmet of Fate demanding to be worn by a reluctant host body.

Daredevil Vol. 1 # 262-263, 265: Ol Hornhead deals with Inferno! More from Nocenti's run with JR Jr. on here. I told you it was going to be hard not putting their full run in these CFC boxes. Nocenti seems to be the only one who actually GOT Inferno and how fucked up it would be if New York City got overrun and possessed by demons. It's an absurdist dark comedy nightmare she presents herein. Years ago reading this I found it silly how she wrote the regular citizens barely caring or reacting to the horror around them but seeing where our world is now and how fucked it is and how unaffected people are by the grind and insanity of life, I fully believe she presents the most realistic shit ever in these comics. The last issue where DD just silently runs around absolutely beating the shit out of demons, then tries to pick up some trash to make things better, then sits and has a beer and cheers to NYC being the greatest city on Earth is the most brilliant perfect thing ever. Life and all of it's horrible happenings will try to kill you every single day, but you gotta grind and along the way do your small part to better the world and your soul, and find time to sit back and catch a quiet moment for yourself to smile and take it all in and love it, suffering and all.

Batman Vol. 3 #36-37: Tom King's Batman is a mess of a traumatized writer grappling with issues he should be dealing with in therapy but instead does through a comic, editorial meddling, grand aspirations that were never going to be allowed to happen, and a few gems along the way that are some of the best Batman comics ever. It's an infuriating, stupid run that I hate with rare moments I absolutely love. It is maddening, like most of Tom King's output. This story is one of those few gems I love. Presenting Superman, Batman and their respective partners, Catwoman and Lois Lane, as a normal pair of buddies and lovers in the most unusual world gives us such a fun story to work with. Add to this the incredibly sexy art of Clay Mann, which is always a sumptuous treat, and you get an alltimer.

Bram Stoker's Dracula #1-4: I love this movie. It's a 90's cultural touchstone that I can remember being SUCH a big deal thing in my hazy kid mind. It's not actually a very good movie but it also is one of the best movies. This is the magic of superb costume design and set design. An emphasis on practical effects and mood and atmosphere. The bizarre cast which blends legend Anthony Hopkins with the baffling choices of young Keanu and Winona, and the wild card payoff of Gary Oldman as Dracula. The whole movie is a tremendously soulful vibe where you all it's shortcomings don't matter when everything feels so well done with a real creative effort you can actually FEEL and appreciate behind every aspect of making the film. It's a rare thing I dearly miss. And that brings us to this comic adaptation. Like I said, cultural touchstone, so of course this gets a 90's adaptation, but just like the movie we get Roy Thomas, MIKE MIGNOLA, and John Nyberg bringing that same soulful creative mastery to this project. I often regard this as Mignola's greatest work, from adapting such a sprawling movie complete with actor likenesses that are instantly recognizable but also definitively his style, to in many ways improving on the execution of scenes, movement and story from the film. A failing card company's comic division puts out a masterpiece of a 1990's movie. It makes NO SENSE we got this wonderful comic. I own the polybagged versions complete with trading cards for the film, which is a charming bonus.

Dragon Ball Part 2 #5-15: The 21st World Martial Arts Tournament Saga!!! Easily my favorite story arc from the OG Dragon Ball. It's such a perfect synthesis of the gag manga and perfect shonen fight manga spectrums of Dragon Ball. A guy who's fighting style is being disgusting and smelling bad, a woman who uses gender stereotypes and her own sexuality as weapons, a dinosaur monster thing, Goku, Krillin, Master Roshi in disguise parodying Jackie Chan, an honorable warrior fighting for his poor village - it's just the perfect mix of serious and silly and I love it so so much.

Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #462-465: Chris Claremont does a mini Excalibur reunion with Psylocke and Rachel Summers, as well as Alan Davis for the first two issues before we get Chris Bachalo and the House of M Universe for the last two issues. This is Claremont finally getting his hands on all the Marvel UK Dave Thorpe/Alan Moore characters and having a ball. This was actually the first place I encountered those characters and I was so into it I tracked down the original stuff and just fell in love. I love how Claremont blends his own continuing run with those old elements, the Excalibur stuff and his own fun take on the House of M. All with art by Alan Davis AND Chris Bachalo?? It's a bizarre amalgamation of decades of Marvel Mutant stories and I just love it.

Generation NeXt #1-4: As much as I lament the fact that this mini completely derailed the momentum of the launch of Generation X by popping in only 4 issues in the fledgling ongoing series, it may well be worth it for this PERFECT story. Easily the best material from my beloved Age of Apocalypse. This is the bleakest, most cynical, most appropriate reflection of that dark alternate reality. I also consider this to be the pinnacle of the Chris Bachalo/Mark Buckingham art team, and nearly everything they ever did together is solid gold, so that's saying something.

Dragon Ball Part 1 #2-3: I prefer the original DB over the latter DBZ era and I love this fun early arc of Goku and Bulma bonding and starting their grand adventure and meeting Master Roshi, uncensored Bulma pulling up her dress and all, here in the Viz floppies.

Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #172-173: The X-Men in Japan for Wolverine's wedding. One of my alltime fave X-Men stories and the best of the Claremont/Paul Smith run. Rogue proving herself to the team and bonding with Wolvie in an iconic team-up. Yukio unleashing Storm's punk side. Maddy Pryor entering the bizarre world of the X-Men. Mastermind behind the scenes being a dick. Just sublime.

Resurrection of Magneto #1-4: I wasn't sure what to make of this series as it is mired in the terrible output of the end of the Krakoa era but I was pleasantly surprised to find it to be a fine exploration of Magneto and Storm as characters tying into decades of past obscure continuity as well as recent nostalgia minis Marvel has put out for the characters. What made it become part of the CFC Canon though was the work done with the Shadow King, confirming connections if the reader so choose for that character that I have been eternally clamoring for.

Single Issues

Spider-Man: The Parker Years: My favorite comic ever.

Green Lantern Vol. 3 #59: My second favorite comic ever.

Spider-Boy #1: My third favorite comic ever and easily the best Amalgam Comic. When DC and Marvel crossed over they smushed together and made Amalgam Comics. While some creators didn't quite understand the assignment, Karl Kesel and Mike Wieringo absolutely did! It's a weird time in the 90's and Ben Reilly is Spider-Man so they blended him with Kon-El the clone Superboy. It's a super strange pairing but it allows Kesel to go hog wild with Cadmus stuff and make such novel creative choices to make the unique blend of characters work so well. Every panel of this implies and develops the larger fake Amalgam Universe in such an entertaining way.

Marvel Two-In-One Vol. 1 #86: My fourth favorite comic ever. The Thing and Sandman stop fighting and sit down to have a beer and talk.

Hector Plasm: De Mortuis: My fifth favorite comic ever.

Godzilla vs Barkley: An absurd tie-in to a 1992 Nike commercial, this comic has a young Charles Barkley fan with a magic Silver Dollar, give said Dollar to Chuck, who he describes as "Earth's Greatest Warrior", so he can magically grow to Godzilla size to stop Godzilla. Charles does this by playing one on one in the Grand Canyon. It's so godamn stupid and so godamn AMAZING!!!

Marvel Tales: The New Fantastic Four: This is just a packed single issue reprint of Fantastic Four Vol. 1 #347-349 with all the extras from the TPB. A really cool done in one package. I appreciate these new Marvel Tales that Marvel is putting out. I recommend they take some of my picks for future releases!

Legionnaires Vol. 1 #59: I love the 90's "Archie" Legion and nothing exemplified their unique charm more than the downtime issues, like this one, where they'd go to the beach, or go on dates, or deal with solo stuff or regular life problems.

Age of Apocalypse featuring the X-Men #1: The 2005 revival of my beloved Age of Apocalypse event is largely a very stupid mess where writer C.B. "Akira Yoshida" Cebulski seems to have never even read the original event, BUT we did get this anniversary oneshot out of it with a bunch of cool pin-ups and short untold tales style stories from that world. The best is the Scott Lobdell and Alvin Lee story.

The Amazing Spider-Man #300: Maybe the best anniversary issue ever. The definition of a PERFECT single issue. A tight single story that manages to fit in a ton of turmoil for Peter Parker as we get all in one the origin of Venom, an eerie creeping suspense story, a knockdown slugfest, and the return of the red and blue costume.

Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special: My memory is fuzzy but at the time this came out, I was only reading DC Comics by trade. That finally changed here. I can still remember people losing their minds over the final page on the CBR forums. Not only Sinestro but also Cyborg Superman, Parallax, Superboy Prime AND The Anti-Monitor??? I was floored. These were all the big bads from all the evergreen DC collections I had been reading. Absolutely unbelievable levels of hype!! I immediately downloaded a scanned copy and have been reading DC Comics weekly since. This one is still so special to me, this is THE comic that got me to follow DC live and religiously.

LCSD 2018 Cheryl Blossom #1: Cherly Blossom is my favorite Archie girl. Originally Betty & Veronica #320 - the first appearance of Cheryl Blossom, where she shows up and immediately starts stripping on the beach, was in the CFC box until I found this neat little oneshot collection of early Cheryl stories which reprints "Dare to be Bare" from Betty & Veronica #320, "Fast & Loose" from Betty & Veronica #322, "Which is Rich" from Archie #323, and "It Seams Sew Sad" from Archie's T.V. Laugh-Out #90.

Batman Adventures - Mad Love: Nothing really beats when Bruce Timm does interior sequential comic art, and this is probably the best he ever did. Paul Dini and Timm make a comic tie-in to the legendary Batman the Animated Series that is SO GOOD they later adapt it in as an episode.

Marvel Holiday Special #1: I have distinct memories of getting this when I was VERY young while out with my Mom on errands and looking through it (I don't even think I could read yet) while I waited for her to get her hair done or something. Even as like a 4 year old, Art Adams's artwork called out to me; that cover and the value of getting Spidey, Ghost Rider, the X-Men and everyone else for the price of one issue? It was a must to toddler me. Looking at it now as an adult, although it has stiff competition from the 92 Holiday Special #2, this one is still the best of the Marvel Holiday anthologies, packed with so many fun little Holiday stories from so many top creators.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vol. 1 #8 Remaster: I've never read Cerebus and I think Dave Sim has lost his mind nowadays and sucks but I absolutely love this incredibly weird Ninja Turtles/Cerebus crossover. It makes no sense to me why this is my favorite Mirage Turtles issue. Maybe I just love Renet, who knows?! There is just such a joyful, authentic feeling of hungry, hard working indie creators of the 80's just jamming together to make something silly and fun they wanted to do in this one. I was pleased to see a rerelease of it in 2023 with a nice new cover.

Jughead Double Digest #195: The new lead story in this digest has Jughead attending the Wing Fest in Buffalo, NY. I am a Buffalo, NY native who has lived here all my life and I was shocked how many very inside Buffalo cameos and references that this story contains. I love it.

Superman #654: Lois and Clark’s “Special Day” – the first time that he as Superman held Lois in his arms.

Batman #400: Doug Moench, Steve Lightle, George Perez, Paris Cullins, Bill Sienkiewicz, Art Adams, Tom Sutton, Steve Leialoha, Joe Kubert, Ken Steacy, Rick Leonardi, Brian Bolland, John Byrne, Bruce Patterson, Larry Mahlstedt, Terry Austin, Ricardo Villagran, Karl Kesel, Adrienne Roy, John Costanza, Tom Orzechowski & Andy Kubert - ALL OF THEM DOING INTERIOR SEQUENTIAL PAGES!!!

Spectacular Spider-Man #200: DeMatteis and Sal Buscema bring us the stunning conclusion to the greatest Spider-Man run ever.

The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #328: Mr. Fixit Hulk vs Cosmic Powers Spider-Man, during Acts of Vengeance, drawn by Todd McFarlane. Just staggering how much this one is all my shit.

Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #1: Ultimate Kitty Pryde and Peter Parker 4Eva!!!! One of the best comics ever. Kitty and Pete go on a date in this perfect little slice of teen love.

DC Comics Presents: Harley Quinn: a 100 Page Spectacular collecting BATMAN: HARLEY QUINN #1, JOKER'S ASYLUM II: HARLEY QUINN #1, and stories from BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHTS #14, COUNTOWN #10, BATMAN GOTHAM KNIGHTS #30 and BATMAN BLACK AND WHITE(2013) #1. The main draw here for me is the Joker's Asylum story with art by Joe Quinones, which is my favorite Harley Quinn story of alltime. Add in more Quinones, from the Black & White story, as well as some Bruce Timm with the origin file from Countdown, and you've got one of the best Harley oneshots ever.

The Batman Adventures Annual #1: A star studded anthology of various Batman rogues featuring the work of Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Mike Parobeck, Matt Wagner, Dan DeCarlo, Klaus Janson, John Byrne and Rick Burchett. Nearly every issue of Batman Adventures is great but these issues full of Dini, Timm and other legends are on another level.

Spider-Boy Team-Up #1: Karl Kesel brings us a Spider-Boy sequel which dare I say could be better than the first, this time with Roger Stern helping to write and absolutely breathtaking art from Ladronn. The fun part of this one is they smush together The Legion of Super-Heroes and The Guardians of the Galaxy and it serves as a hilariously fun parody poking fun at all the various different versions of these teams that have existed.

Best of DC Blue Ribbon Digest #61: The Best of 1985's DC Comics! A beautiful little snapshot of 80's DC as you get Swamp Thing's "Anatomy Lesson", Wolfman and Kane Supes, Levitz Legion, Blue Devil, "Who Is Donna Troy?", and an issue of Atari Force!

The New Avengers Vol. 1 Annual #1: The initial roster and status quo of the New Avengers only got about a year and a half before it was torn apart by Civil War. This is a VERY specific slice of time where you get to see that team hang out in Avengers Tower, have a standard superhero fight, and then attend Luke Cage and Jessica Jones' wedding; all with Olivier Coipel masterfully doing his thing.

The Flash Vol. 2 #182: Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins revolutionized the Flash's Rogues during their run on The Flash, both injecting so much personality into their backstory, motivation, "code", and visuals that you often felt more like reading about them than the Flash. This is the best spotlight of that as we get a full Captain Cold issue.

Cavewoman 2014 - 20th Anniversary Convention Book: This has my favorite Cavewoman story in it, which is just a simple plot of Meriem getting her top half stuck in a cave hole. It has humor, big apes, dinosaurs and Meriem hopping all over while naked, so it's a perfect Cavewoman story.

Batman Vol. 1 #666: Damian Wayne as the soulless Batman of the future vs The Devil. Wish we could see more of this from Morrison & Kubert.

Ultimate Spider-Man #200: A wake of sorts for Ultimate Peter Parker and to me the perfect final issue of the Ultimate Universe. Contains what may be my favorite double page spread ever by David LaFuente

Copra #45: A damn good issue of Copra but this issue has a letter from me and pictures of my dog, D.D!!!

Adventures in the DC Universe #16: A riff on the classic Green Lantern & Green Arrow drugs story from the 70's but with Kyle Rayner and Connor Hawke in the kinda sorta DC Animated Adventures Universe. The highlight is Kyle discussing jazz with his neighbor.

OMAC Vol. 1 #1: A startling look into the world that's coming by King Kirby. The perfect single issue. The perfect first issue.

Garfield's Pet Force 2014 Special: Pet Forces from across the Multiverse come together to fight Vetvix and all the villains from the original 90's book series(including the ones they planned but never debuted). This in turn merges the Boom continuity with the 90s books continuity. As a HUGE fan of the 90's books this delighted me to no end.

The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #308: The X-Men Thanksgiving issue!! Some of John Romita Jr.'s best work.

The Sensational Spider-Man Vol. 2 Annual #1: Right before they dissolved Peter Parker and Mary Jane's marriage, Matt Fraction gave us this tale of why those two will never be broken up, no matter what.

Action Comics Vol. 1 #762: Clark Kent's Christmas shopping goes awry when the department store Santa turns out to be Etrigan the Demon. La Encantadora, a personal fave character of mine, just so happens to also be shopping there and teams up with Supes.

Green Lantern/Silver Surfer: Parallax and Thanos team up to take on Kyle Rayner and Silver Surfer by Ron Marz, who wrote both of their titles in the 90s, and drawn by original Kyle artist Darryl Banks. It's everything you could ask for from this crossover.

The Curious Mystery Involving Dracula And The Wolfman: Such a cute and fun take on spooky boys.

Wolverine First Class #6: Kitty Pryde, Siryn, Amp and baby Ilyana Rasputin have sleepover shenanigans that bother Logan, when all he wants is to sit down and watch the hockey game. Salva Espin is SUCH an amazing artist.

Invincible #54: Some time travel nonsense happens, but forget all that. This is the date night all over the world romance issue for Atom Eve and Invincible!!

The New Warriors Vol. 1 #39: The best issue of New Warriors. A quiet downtime issue where we check in on all the civilian lives of the team. Drama, romance, so much angst! This one has it all.

Thor Vol. 1 #437: Bumbling, loveable Hercules tricks Quasar into battling Eric Masterson Thor, in a misguided attempt to help train Eric. More fun ensues when The enchantress fouls up the fight even further. Wendell Vaughn and Eric Masterson, two of my eternal faves, this comic was made for me!!

Legionnaires Vol. 1 #7: This is the Legion beach anime episode and it’s drawn ENTIRELY by comics legend Adam Hughes.

Swamp Thing Vol. 2 Annual #2: Swampy goes to Hell to save Abby, encountering all the mystical/magical DCU characters along the way. An absolute masterpiece.

X-Men #24: A quiet downtime issue (gosh I love those ones, don't I?) with gorgeous moody artwork by Andy Kubert, Bill Sienkiewicz and Paul Becton. Rogue and Gambit go on a date, Cyke and Jean have some long talks, and Psylocke and Kwannon try to deal with what's happened to them.

Detective Comics Vol.1 #526: An oversized fantastic anniversary issue wherein Killer Croc, here as the new big bad member of the Batman rogues gallery, assembles just about every Batman villain you can think of to take on the Batfam.

New Gods Vol. 1 #7: THE PACT! Probably the best issue of Jack Kirby's Fourth World. A flashback history lesson of the eternal struggle between Apokolips and New Genesis.

Grendel: Devil by the Deed: I love every Grendel story but nothing hits as hard as this prose story of the original Grendel, Hunter Rose, accompanied by such moody art deco artwork.

Batman Shadow of the Bat Annual #3: Sadly, Brian Apthorp is a comic artist of which we never got much work from. But the material we did get, WOW!! This is a wonderful reimagining of Batman's first encounter with Poison Ivy and the artwork here is just next level. I adore the storytelling and the vibrant personalities that Apthorp puts into everyone's expressions and body language.

Hitman #34: I'm not an Ennis guy besides Hitman. His cynical hate of superheroes while writing superheroes is always annoying, but it's so refreshing when he rarely writes one he clearly loves, in this case Superman. Maybe the best examination of the character ever done here.

Superman Man Of Tomorrow #1,000,000: Superman, while in the future, asks to be shown the entire history of the whole Superman line, his ancestors and their centuries long battle with Arch-Enemy Solaris, The Tyrant Sun. This book is PACKED with so many interesting, amazing ideas about Superman’s son, grandson, and so on and so on. Each little sentence about a Super ancestor could be a whole comic series.

The Uncanny X-Men and The New Teen Titans: Darkseid and Dark Phoenix team up to punk some teenagers by Chris Claremont and Walt Simonson. No Marv Wolfman in sight. All of that equals perfection my friends.

Secret Wars: Secret Love: An anthology book that features Michel Fiffe riffing on Typhoid Mary and Daredevil in an Ann Nocenti run tribute, a Robbie Reyes/Kamala Khan team up by legend Felipe Smith teasing us and their respective love interests with the possibility of those two getting together and an Iron Fist and Misty Knight story where Danny braids Misty's hair drawn by Gurihuru.

Special Edition X-Men #1: A reprint of Giant Size X-Men #1, still such a great comic, but with an added Claremont, Dave Cockrum story where Kitty Pryde and Ilyana Rasputin give a tour of the X-Mansion and everyone throws Kitty a surprise birthday party. It's a real Cockrum tribute issue. I will always prefer this version over the original or the 90's chromium Gary Frank cover reprint.

Sharknife FCBD #1: Corey Lewis is right up there with Jack Kirby and J.M. DeMatteis as my favorite comic creators ever. His Sharknife comics are pure soul rejuvenating bombs of creativity and comfort for me. This is a short and sweet Free Comic Book Day Sharknife Gaiden.

Hector Plasm: Totentanz: While not as good as the other Hector Plasm comic above, this one still has a great lead bit and a ton of pinups and extras and short fun things, I just wish it had more pure comics in it. That being said, it's still Hector Plasm, so it's great.

Spectacular Spider-Man Vol. 1 #115: I am absolutely OBSESSED with Mark Beachum and his dream like erotica style artwork. This is a perfect encapsulation of his mastery of dynamic body poses and seeming obsession with asses. I also really dig the weird 80's period of Spec Spidey by Peter David with Spidey in his black costume and Black Cat and all types of weird side villains. This is a beloved snapshot of just that.

X-Men Vol. 2 #1: Let me first say that the plot and writing in Mutant Genesis is absolute ass as Chris Claremont is shoved out the door. BUT the art and designs by Jim Lee and the exciting new launch for the franchise as X-Factor is folded back into the main team for the 90's is so undeniably cool. The pin-ups, the fold out cover, everything about this is the hypest, coolest shit ever made. It's a very confusing feeling as I hate everything this issue represents and does while simultaneously loving every single thing about it. More often than not, that was what it was like reading comics in the 90's.

Christmas with the Super-Heroes #2: The rare Holiday anthology where every single story is a home run. This one contains my second favorite Superman story ever as well as a truck colliding with your heart and soul Deadman/Pre-Crisis Supergirl story.

Solo Avengers #14: Chris Claremont and Alan Davis bring us the best She-Hulk comic ever made.

Batman Vol. 1 #244: Ra’s al Ghul is my favorite Batman villain and this is my favorite story of the O'Neil/Adams era of Batman. Batman and a sexy Olympic skier chase Ra's and Talia down a snow covered mountain and then a shirtless Batman vs Ra's in a sword fight in the desert which ends in defeat for Ra's and a sweet mack session with Talia for Bats. Perfection.

Scooby Doo Team-Up Vol. 1 #40: Loveable weed smoking hippie Chester Williams of the Swamp Thing supporting cast is revealed to be Shaggy from Scooby Doo's Uncle, thus initiating the team-up visit. Solomon Grundy and Swampy shows up, and even Abby eventually!! It ends up being a funny Moore era Saga of the Swamp Thing reunion and homage that rules so much.

Legionnaires Vol. 1 #77: Basically a combo of the two other Legionnaire issues I posted above, a quiet down time issue for the full cast as they go to a beach resort. It's a celebration of the entire 90's "Archie Legion" era and a fitting goodbye from the creative teams as Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning come on right after and soon relaunch the title.

Justice League of America #200: Oh baby!! The premise of this one is all brawling as an original Big 7 Leaguer fights a Satellite League member all drawn by some huge comic legend - Pat Broderick, Jim Aparo, Dick Giordano, Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Brian Bolland and Joe Kubert!!!

Deadpool Vol. 3 #11: Deadpool time travels to the Amazing Spider-Man #47 and has to take Peter Parker's place while also making sure to not muck up the timeline. Absolute genuine hilarity ensues.

Thunderstrike Vol. 1 #1: Thunderstrike's big debut!!! Just big sweeping action and character in an exciting, oversized intro issue from DeFalco and Frenz. I'm always wowed with the experimentation of big single and double page spreads and huge single panel art Frenz does in this issue.

The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #400: The death of Aunt May. Stunning revelations, inspired character work, and scenes that will make you cry like a baby. All of that while making it work as yet another chapter in the blossoming Clone Saga. One of the all time best!

X-Men Chronicles #1: I am irrationally obsessed with the Age of Apocalypse event and literally anything related to it. So I'm constantly craving more tiny bits of lore and continuity for that reality and that's why I love these "Chronicles" one shots that replaced the X-Men Unlimited series which usually told self contained side stories to fit in wherever for the line. We get to see a flashback tale to the early days of the X-Men of this universe and the ascension of Apocalypse all done with some very pleasing and unique Terry Dodson inked by Klaus Janson art. These also had specific history or character pin-ups by some legendary artists in the back.

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #25: The famous "Silent Interlude". No dialogue as Snake eyes rescues Scarlett from Cobra and the mysterious ties to Storm shadow are revealed. The blueprint on story telling and artistic draftsmanship in comics.

Thor Vol. 1 #444: Eric Masterson Thor takes on the mystery of a sewer dwelling creature that resembles The Grinch in this Holiday classic.

Green Lantern Vol. 3 #78: The Kyle Rayner/Donna Troy relationship commitment issue. My second favorite relationship in comics behind Peter and MJ is given some time to shine.

The Uncanny X-Men #205: WOUNDED WOLF! Lady Deathstrike and The Reavers hunt a feral Wolverine with only Katie Power of The Power Pack to help him during a snowstorm. Barry Windsor-Smith's artwork here is an otherworldly swirling tornado of detailed lines and emotions.

Birds of Prey Vol. 1 #8: I'm a Dick/Starfire kind of guy myself but even I can get on board with Dick and Babs when it's done so authentically sweet as this romantic, inspiring tale is.

Spectacular Spider-Man Vol. 1 #241: The epilogue issue to The Clone Saga. This is a heartfelt issue with Peter and MJ about dealing with grief and loss and finding the love and strength to carry on.

The Incredible Hulk Vol. 1 #418: I wrote above how Gary Frank's art during this era is as good as comic art can get and it's on full display here with the dozens of guest stars and cameos (Including Death of The Endless!) for the wedding of Rick Jones and Marlo Chandler. The fold out faux wedding invitation cover is so cool.

Mary Jane and Black Cat Beyond #1: Us true Mary Jane fans have been starving for so many years now. We finally got some sustenance in this sexy heist one shot with some excellent dialogue and characterization for Felicia and MJ regarding their longtime relationship.

Green Lantern Vol. 3 #81: Special issue for the funeral of Hal Jordan which has priceless moments like Kyle Rayner meeting Nightwing, Kyle and Jack Knight being antique art dorks together, cameos by most of the 90's DCU, and a prominent and rare non-Vertigo Swamp Thing appearance. All of that bolstered by a rad foil cardstock cover and a Silver age Hal story reprint complete with a new Ron Marz/Gil Kane framing sequence!

Wolverine Vol. 1 #75: The aftermath of Magneto ripping the adamantium out of Wolverine and the physical and emotional trauma he goes through while almost dying. This shit absolutely traumatized me as a kid, but I couldnt stop reading it over and over it's so well done.

Jungle Action Vol. 2 #18: Billy Graham!! Graham's Will Eisner influenced work with Don McGregor on this Black Panther run is full of stunning visuals but for me, nothing beats the double page spread introducing the leopard print covered Madam Slay in this issue.

Swamp Thing Vol. 2 #34: Few things comfort me as much as Swamp Thing and Abby Holland's love for each other and this issue is solely that. In one of the rare breaks from horror and heartbreak during Alan Moore's run, we get Abby and Swampy having their version of sex, a level of intimacy of which we mortals could only dream of.

Batman Vol. 3 Annual #4: This story celebrates the magic of Batman and how he fits into any plot you want in his unending mission. The premise of this one is that we are reading Alfred’s diary, which is a logbook of all the various adventures Batman faces. When we start, these diversified tales are given 4-5 pages to breathe. Then, the stories continue but they get one page, then 3 panels to a page, then 4, then 5, then 6, 7, 8, 9 as each panel represents a wildly different day of events Batman lives through.

Generation X Underground Special: I deeply miss the 80's/90's indie comic - usually black and white, deeply weird, full of jokes and pop culture references, done with a soulful style where you felt like you could feel the blood, sweat, and tears that went into publishing this random periodical that only a couple hundred people may ever read. That type of thing has been replaced by like an Instagram post comic. The internet SUCKS now guys. Anyways, this was basically Marvel looking at some fan comic about Generation X by indie comic master Jim Mahfood and saying yea ok, we'll publish your little zine. It's sort of a miracle that this thing even exists.

Ultimate Spider-Man #155: The entire run of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man up until The Death of Spider-Man is my fave era of Ultimate Spidey material. Cramming his house with all his various friends and constantly expanding that huge group of teens was just the best. This is the last issue before Bendis jarringly swerved and killed Ultimate Pete and to me it represents a window slamming shut on a status quo that had truly unlocked perfection and had such promising potential for future stories. I'll never not be mad at the direction they took after this. It was also really cool to have Chris Samnee briefly do some work with these characters.

Superman Vol. 1 Annual #3: One of my alltime favorite single issue packages. A huge reprint filled book with pretty much every Silver Age Supes story you could ever want. Yes, that includes the lion head Superman story.

The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #137: Another one of those much ballyhooed classics that actually is that good. The Dark Phoenix Saga as a whole is great but not perfect, until you get to the final heartbreaking issue which really is, from pacing, to plot, to dialogue, to art, about as perfect a comic as you'll come across.

X-Men Chronicles #2: Just like #1 above, this gives us a flashback tale of when The Wolverine attacked Magneto's X-Men and the story of when Rogue's love drifted from Gambit to Mags. Love the way Ian Churchill draws every single character here. This one too has the wonderful pin-ups in the back again.

Jonah Hex Vol.2 #50: The tragic tale of Jonah Hex and Tallulah Black's child, and all the Western gunslinging vengeance thats comes along for the ride. Incomparable art by the legendary Darwyn Cooke.

Action Comics Vol. 1 Annual #1: Batman and Superman team up to take on Skeeter, the Daisy Dukes wearing vampire with art by Art Adams. If there's anything I've learned assembling these CFC boxes it's that Art Adams may be my favorite comic creator ever.

The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #102: The Lizard, Morbius and Six-Armed Spidey all collide in the climax to this classic body horror Spider-Man story!

The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #273: Besides The Outback Era, my favorite era of X-books was the weird X-Men Disassembled, I call it, time period when Forge and Banshee were essentially Headmasters and they were trying to find various members of the team that were flung all over the world by the Siege Perilous. This is a quiet come down issue during the height of that era right after the X-Tinction Agenda crossover where all the various X-Team members are FINALLY back together again. This is also a jam art issue featuring a bevy of comic legends - Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Klaus Janson, John Byrne, Rick Leonardi, Marc Silvestri, Michael Golden and Larry Stroman.

X-Factor Vol. 1 #87" X-Aminations! Doc Samson has each team member sit down on the couch for some psychological evaluations. A revolutionary single issue that provides some essential character moments for all involved, especially Quicksilver.

X-Factor Vol. 3 #13: Re-X-aminations! Doc Samson sits down with the new version of X-Factor for some psychological evaluations. Just as entertaining and insightful as the original story.

Everything Sucks! #1: I once described this series of comics as "Curb Your Enthusiasm meets Tiny Toons" and I still stand by that description. Awful, wacky, cynical but somehow loveable characters that you find yourself relating to way too much, which is probably a bad thing. This one is all about Noah stubbornly needing to get the burger he craves. I felt that shit so hard. There's a few bonus pin-ups and short comics in the back of this one I really love too about Noah and his cat.

DC One Million 80 Page Giant: Extremely unique set of anthology tales that offer a wide variety of story genre and art styles. Much like Age of Apocalypse, I irrationally love anything DC One Million and this is about the only non the big event slice of it we ever got. Huge fan of the Mark Millar, Mike Wieringo story in this one.

Superman Vol. 1 Annual # 11: Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons extremely perverse but oddly sweet and comforting classic. I'm such a big fan of the deceptively talented clean and simple linework Gibbons does here. Moore is able to imbue Mongul, Wonder Woman, Robin, Batman and characters from Supes' dream world with so much personality, often times with just one line of spoken dialogue. They make it seem so easy with their staggering talent here.

Mega Man #50: A great chapter of the Worlds Unite crossover but the reason to love this one is the backup story where Mega Man and Mega Man X get some quiet time to interact and compare and contrast their history and their lives.

Scott Pilgrim: Full Colour Odds and Ends 2008: When I was 19-20 or so I was OBSESSED with Scott Pilgrim. His life mirrored my own in so many eerie ways. Back before all the main books were colored, this one shot was a rare treasure to have to see that world in color with bonus sketches, mini-comics and extras all in one package. The shitty movie and growing up kind of made me want to forget about Scott Pilgrim and leave it, along with the kid I once was, in the past. But I recently reread the series with a new adult perspective and found myself falling in love again. I was glad I held on to this one and can appreciate it once more.

Swamp Thing Vol. 2 #50: Similar to the Annual listed above, this is Swampy alongside an even bigger cast of the magical side of the DCU in the climax to a longer tale of a conflict against a great unknown Darkness.

Swamp Thing Vol. 1 #7: A little superhero spills into the Bernie Wrightson original horror Swampy series as he clashes with Batman.

X-Men Vol. 2 #109: A Christmas themed 100 Page Monster! Around this time in 2000 Marvel made a few of their books 100 Page Monsters and reprinted about 3 issues after one regular new lead issue. This one is a new X-Treme X-Men and regular X-Men team Christmas story along with reprints of X-Men #98- Christmas in Manhattan as the Sentinels attack, Uncanny X-Men #143 - Kitty Pryde vs the Demon, and Uncanny X-Men #341 - Cannoball vs Gladiator - all some of the best single issues of X-Men ever. I'm blown away at how much good shit they packed in here.

Superman Adventures #41: The novel idea of a different story on every page. Each bite sized tale surprisingly rules.

X-Force Vol. 1 #19: Post X-Cutioner's Song, X-Force finds themselves at a crossroads without a leader and under house arrest at the Mansion. Without Xavier, without Magneto, without Cable - who are these characters and what path will they take as they enter adulthood, not as X-Men but as X-Force.

The Multiversity Guidebook: Grant Morrison and a huge selection of artists either create new or revisit old universes to create a catalog of the DC Multiverse. Still so cool even if nothing much ever came from this.

Superman Vol. 1 #156: “Every man can be a Superman”

The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #138: The very next issue after The Dark Phoenix Saga, Cyclops recaps every single X-Men story while wallowing in his grief. It's so damn cool to see Claremont and Byrne give us this trip down memory lane.

Batman Vol. 1 #156: Probably my favorite Silver Age Batman story. This one has some surprising depth and subject matter for the time as we delve into the psychological trauma Batman feels over Robin potentially dying.

Forever People Vol. 1 #4: "All young humans recognize the real thing when they see it". The ultimate character showcase for Darkseid and a fascinating exploration of how we perceive good and evil and how we cope with it for better or worse.

DC Comics Presents Legion of Super-Heroes #2: A collection of various Geoff Johns Legion Threeboot stories - the first appearance of the Legion from Adventure Comics #247, the Legion co-feature from the short lived Adventure Comics #0-4, Action Comics #864 - a bridge issue between Superman and the Legion and Legion of Three Worlds, “Friday Night In The 21st Century” from Action Comics #900, and a Mon-El tale from Action Comics Annual #10. I LOVED this older reinstatement of the original Legion and will always be sad we didn't get more from them by Johns. Levitz's material usually outright ignored what was established and had some pretty terrible plots. But at least we got this little Legion celebration package

I Heart Marvel - Web of Romance #1: A lovely story about Spider-Man and Mary Jane's relationship during the New Avengers Tower era drawn by Cory Walker. Perfection

Daredevil Vol. 1 #260: This is basically Daredevil's version of Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 where he fights the Sinister Six. Typhoid Mary and all the villains Ann Nocenti had introduced in her run up until that point round out this Sinister Six in a brutal, fast paced fight comic.

Superman and Batman: World's Funnest: Comedy genius Evan Dorkin has Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite have a brawl through pretty much every planet, reality, universe or continuity DC has ever had with a staggering art roster which includes Mike Allred, Brian Bolland, Frank Cho, Dave Gibbons, Jaime Hernandez, Stuart Immonen, Phil Jimenez, Doug Mahnke, Frank Miller, Sheldon Moldoff, Alex Ross, Scott Shaw, Ty Templeton and Bruce Timm!!

Guy Gardner: Warrior #29: I'm a big fan of Beau Smith's oddball Warrior run and the jewel of that run is this issue drawn by Phil Jimenez. Guy opens his bar and just about every single character in the DC Universe shows up for the grand opening.

Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 4 #100: A huge anniversary issue with a great Computo lead story but ALSO with a ton of amazing pin-ups and short stories in the back featuring Alan Davis and Walt Simonson.

Mortal Kombat Collector's Edition Comic Book: A mail-order comic tie in to the original Mortal Kombat written and drawn by series co-creator John Tobias. If you read Nintendo Power growing up, you may remember some of the art from this comic used for MK features. That art was burned into my brain as a kid and it wasn't until recently, when I bought a slabbed copy of this and cracked it out of it's stupid shell, that I got to experience the majesty of this official comic that feels like a great indie book. Tobias' art is MY Mortal Kombat.

The Punisher Meets Archie: An absolutely ludicrous crossover idea that thankfully is in on the joke. Everything you could ever want when you read that title is delivered here.

Spider-Girl #0: A reprint of What If? #105, the debut of Mayday Parker aka Spider-Girl, the greatest what If? issue ever. I prefer this reprint of the issue instead of the original as it contains little previews for the new series of the MC2 Universe- J2, A-Next and Spider-Girl!

The Kingdom: Offspring #1: The Kingdom is a great event that is never talked about. This one shot about Plastic Man's son, Offspring is the charming highlight, especially because the art is all Frank Quitely. Always amazed at that.

DC Comics Presents Vol. 1 #47: Like I mentioned above, I love DC's use of pre-refined He-Man and his world. How can you not love this issue where He-Man and Superman team up to take on Skeletor?

Batman Adventures Annual #2: The all stars of Batman The Animated Series - Paul Dini, Glenn Murakami and Bruce Timm - team up to give us a Ra's and Talia story that ends up being a Jack Kirby tribute. Murakami's coloring really makes this one special.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time #1: The IDW Turtles travel back to the age of dinosaurs with my fave Renet, drawn so cute here by Sophie Campbell. This is where they adopt their adorable dinosaur pal, Pepperoni. So cute! All so cute!!

Resident Evil #1 (Marvel Comics): A free Marvel/Capcom promo comic prequel for the release of the original Resident Evil. Check out my extensive Oral History of this comic if you want to learn everything about it and read it, in the article I am most proud of writing.

The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #244: My beloved Outback X-Men era. It's ladies' night and our loveable cast of X-Women hit up The Hollywood Mall for a night of shopping and fun!

The Sensational She-Hulk #50: Such a fun anniversary issue where Jen breaks the Fourth Wall and "auditions" some creators to take over after Byrne leaves including Dave Gibbons, Frank Miller, Wendy Pini, Walt Simonson, Howard Chaykin, Terry Austin, Adam Hughes and Howard Mackie.

Earth Prime - Stargirl #4: I don't know if I can resolutely say that Stargirl is my favorite live action superhero show ever, but it just may be. To have a tie in to the show I love written by legendary creators I equally love, James Robinson and Jerry Ordway, is a dream come true. This is a very quiet, touching story.

X-Men Legacy #234: Mike Carey is my guy, and excluding Claremont, he produces the best X comics. This is a quiet, character driven single issue during his long Rogue centric development that ends up involving her past romances. Who better to portray all that sexiness than Yanick Paquette who provides us some very memorable steamy scenes!

Black Lightning Vol. 2 #5: Tony Isabella and Eddy Newell's brief 90's Black Lightning run is about all you could ever want out of comics and few single issues come close to this one by them. Isabella's narration, character work and emotional heartstring pulling is paired with an gorgeous artistic showcase for Eddy Newell. Seriously, just about every page in here should be hanging in a museum somewhere.

G.I. Joe Deviations: What happens when Cobra actually takes over the world? Well, a lot of world peace and stability, boring management, paperwork and politics. That doesnt sit too well with Cobra Commander who rallies a ragtag group of Joes to dismantle the New cobra World Order. Paul Allor teams with my Comics God, Corey Lewis on this one to make such a funny, super fucking cool, amazingly awesome looking book.

Power Pack Vol. 1 #19: Katie Power invites the Morlocks, Kitty Pryde, Wolverine, Beta Ray Bill, Franklin Richards and Cloak & Dagger over for Thanksgiving. Chaos ensues at the Thanksgiving Day Parade. The best Thanksgiving comic ever!!

Batman Adventures Holiday Special: Phew! All the usual Batman the Animated Series all stars are here in a big ol' anthology of Holiday goodness! All of these were adapted into the episode "Holiday Knights" EXCEPT the Mr. Freeze story which may be the best one in here. I think for all of these, except the Harley & Ivy one, I prefer the comic version to the adaptation.

Radioactive Man #197: The Best Jack Kirby Comic is a Simpsons Comic

Teen Titans Vol. 3 #35: I read this comic when I was 18 and that image of a naked Ravager sneaking into Robin's bed is permanently tattooed into my brain. I love the weird Kid Devil, Ravager era of Teen Titans.

Archie #636: Rule 63 Archie by Gisele Lagace!!!

JLA #61: Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke's JLA is such an imperfect, sprawling monster of a run that you can really feel the hunger they had and appreciate how much personality they give each team member. This is such a fun issue of that run where we get to see a peek into the lives of each member right before they are all called into action.

Invincible #144: The final issue of Invincible. Rushed, sloppy, jarring and perfect.

Supergirl Vol. 5 #9: This issue of Supergirl struggling with her place in the world and her awkward growth into an adult alongside all the expectations people put on a teen girl as well as her personally as an "S" shield bearing superhero really rings true to me. She fights, she rebels, she smokes, she goes out clubbing with an older guy, she deals with family drama and childhood trauma and she saves a little girl who innocently helps put her on the right path. I also love Ian Churchill's art here so damn much.

Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 4 #4: Mon-El vs the Time Trapper with the most heroic, noble sacrifice you've ever seen all expertly done by Keith Giffen. This is a fight you can really FEEL!

Batman 1989 Movie Adaptation: I miss the era when movies and tv got comic adaptations so fans could experience the story if they werent able to see the movie or just to keep that experience going. Sure a ton of them were crap, and in an era where literally everything is available whenever you want it, the need for them just doesnt exist anymore. But man when they hit, THEY HIT!! This one by Denny O'Neil with lush, vibrant artwork that stunningly captures the actor's likenesses by Jerry Ordway and Steve Oliff, shows how some adaptations are so well done they end up having a place next to what they were adapting as an equal piece of unique art.

Thor: The Worthy: Walt Simonson's Thor run, Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz's Thor and Thunderstrike runs, and Kathryn Immonen's Sif led Journey Into Mystery run are my three favorite Thor/Asgard comic chunks in order. Guess what this anniversary oneshot celebrates? Yep, all three of those! I know!! I can't believe it either!!! It's like this was made for me. One of my favorite comics ever.

Dragon Ball #1: In the late 90's Viz started publishing Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z under the Viz Select comics banner as standard American floppies. I love this weird rare format and I was lucky enough to find this rare first issue that reprints one of my favorites, Chapter 1, for under ten bucks. Sometimes virtual bin diving for hours online pays off.

The Incredible Hulk Vol. 1 #417: Another Gary Frank one, another gorgeous aesthetically pleasing feast for the eyes. This one is Rick Jones and fiancée Marlo Chandler's bachelor and bachelorette parties. Captain America unknowingly hires a stripper and Betty Banner yells for them to "Take it off!" as She-Hulk takes the ladies to Marvel's version of Chippendale's.

Thunderstrike Vol. 1 #15: Eric vs Sif! Hela vs Mephisto! Thunderstrike and Thor back in action together! All while the soul of Eric's son, Kevin hangs in the balance!

Spider-Man Unlimited Vol. 3 #14: A short, solid story of Spidey and Black Cat vs Doombots with art full of dynamic action and sexy cheesecake by David Finch. There's nothing particularly special or important or must read here but it is a comic that I always fondly remember and it always makes me smile. That's what Comfort Food Comics is all about.

Captain Marvel Adventures #31: Captain Marvel visits Buffalo, NY!! A real treat for me as a native Buffalonian. They even show off City Hall, still there today, where I got married (well where we filled out the paperwork haha).

X-Men Vol. 2 #8: Still contained in the extremely hype Jim Lee era with the spectacular art, vibe and design he brought. A quiet issue where cyclops drools over Psylocke's Pikachu swimsuit, and Bishop fucks up Rogue's home made boysenberry pie. THE BEST!!

Thor Vol. 1 #356: A HILARIOUS fill in issue where Hercules tells a tall tale of him just absolutely beating Thor's ass with such funny exaggerations to some kids.

The New Titans #126: My favorite Titans comics are from this brief era where Arsenal led a mid 90's ragtag group that included Impulse, Kyle Rayner, Supergirl and more. This is yet another of my favorite genre of superhero comics, the quiet downtime issue where the team hangs out together. All drawn by Rick Mays, an underrated fave of mine. If anyone out there knows any info whatsoever on this issue's writer, Dale Hrebik, PLEASE TELL ME! He wrote this, my favorite Titans issue ever, a fantastic Rose Wilson story in Deathstroke Annual #4 and scripted Marv Wolfman's plot in Deathstroke #50 and that's apparently it. The internet has surprisingly NOTHING else for me.

Daredevil Vol. 1 #397: Daredevil only has two moods - annoyingly jolly swashbuckler swinging freely through the sky and self destructive, depressing man of passion. This is the perfect encapsulation of the latter in this Typhoid Mary focused issue.

Uncanny Avengers Vol. 1 #5: Ok, so this comic is dumb. Rick Remender is dumb. Havok is dumb. His M word speech is impressively dumb. BUT, God help me, I love it. This issue is, you guessed it!, a quiet downtime issue where the team hangs out again!!! Olivier Coipel flexes his God Tier art muscles here and also draws Rogue in her best fit ever.

Wolverine Vol. 1 #54: A fill in issue by Fabian Nicieza and Darick Robertson featuring a great Wolverine and Shatterstar team-up with a nice Rogue bit thrown in as a cherry on top. For some reason Robertson's art in this issue has stuck with me for most of my life.

Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 3 #5: One Legionnaire is murdered which leads to a fellow Legionnaire pulling just about the most badass moment ever in comics to get revenge. I jump around celebrating like I saw a Kobe to Shaq alley-oop whenever I read that moment. GOD, this story is good.

Thunderstrike Vol. 1 #19: Thunderstrike's tagline was "The Everyman Avenger" and that really was his strength as a character. His real life relatable problems, his ex wife and son, his large and diverse supporting cast, his job - it all built such a charming and enjoyable life for Eric. This issue gives us "A Day In The Life", whisking us around and highlighting all of those things that made The Everyman avenger so great.

JLA #5: RECRUITMENT DRIVE!! Most people probably remember this one for the done in one story of Tomorrow Woman, which is great, but I'm sitting here grinning like an idiot reading this one for the group of my beloved 90's era DC Comics characters that come to the JLA Satellite to try out for the team. Hitman shows up just to use his x-ray vision to peep at Wonder Woman! Ha!! Priceless!

DCU Holiday Bash #1: All of the Holiday Bashs were good comics but I have a soft spot for this one because of all the great stories but especially the Walt Simonson and Sal Buscema story where Highfather and Orion fill in as a department store Santa and "Christmas Gnome". Walt's one of about 3 creators who ever GOT the New Gods like Kirby intended and Sal rarely did any DC work so this one is such a special treat.

Untold Tales of Spider-Man Annual #1: Kurt Busiek writing a story where Spider-Man and Sue Storm go on a date which is promptly ruined by Johnny Storm and Namor, drawn by my guy Mike Allred and inked by Marvel Legend Joe Sinnott, equals perfection.

Classic X-Men #27: Every time I read the Classic X-Men vignettes I am left stunned by what an incredible creator John Bolton was. These reprint issues were absolute works of art, perfectly expanding on what came before, always additive, never harmful with simple, clean artwork that Bolton was able to use to infuse the characters with body language and expressions that helped tell those tales so well. This one is my favorite, one of the Ann Nocenti written joints, where Wolverine and Jean are forced together to confront their animalistic heat and passion in the face of a horrifying death.

Batman Returns Movie Adaptation: Another Batmania adaptation! This is another one that stands on equal footing with the movie as it's own thing worth experiencing. Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez's inks over Steve Erwin's pencils are out of this world gorgeous. Some of my favorite comic art ever produced.

Thunderstrike Vol. 1 #16: Like the Thor story above, Eric gets roped into yet another Absorbing Man scheme that ends with Eric promoting a fight between She-Hulk and Titania. It's another hilarious sitcom moment for that weird friendship and has some amazing Frenz art, especially his rendition of She-Hulk and her outfit.

Mortal Kombat 2 collector's Edition Comic: Just like the above first one, this was a mail order tie in comic by John Tobias for the release of MK2. This one is a bit more chaotic but it's so fun seeing the story officially expanded on and seeing more of Kintaro, my fave. I love absolutely anything to do with Mortal Kombat 2.

Adventure Comics #500: This is from the tail end of Adventure Comics when it turned into a digest. This one is all Legion baby!!! Classic after classic after classic from the Silver Age. My absolute favorite shit. All bookended by a fantastic Keith Giffen front and back cover.

Daredevil Vol. 1 #181: I recently reread Miller and Janson's DD run for the first time in over a decade and was pleasantly surprised to see how well it held up and how much I love it more than I ever did. One thing I was particularly struck by, was how much his run resembled a season of television with each issue serving as an episode. He rarely has what we'd call a traditional arc with a continuing story. Sure, stories continue, but time skips, moments are left to the viewer to imagine and fill in, the episodes just keep going forward with an overall seasonal mega-arc focused on Elektra and Matt. He even talks about how the tv he is watching at the time is a big influence on his storytelling in interviews. It's wonderful pacing and planning. This would be your big penultimate episode or your first hour of a season finale (Remember when shows would have 2 hour long special event finales that were essentially two episodes smashed into one? I miss those). Bullseye and Elektra's relationships with Matt expressed herein are eternally complex, ugly, tragic and beautiful.

Daredevil Vol. 1 #179: The Elektra and Daredevil fight in this one should be studied on how to convey movement and action in comics. The sai hitting Urich along with his inner narration should be studied for pacing and storytelling in comics. The art and the PLANNING of the art here can be felt by the reader and teaches so much. This issue is a treasure trove of wisdom on how to make good ass comics.

Daredevil Vol. 1 #175: This would be your mid season finale of Miller and Janson's Daredevil Season. Many of my favorite iconic moments in this issue, from the GORGEOUS opening splash page, to Elektra rolling and throwing her sai at Matt right after, to the masterfully told simultaneous attack on the Hand ninjas by Matt and Elektra. Those pages where Matt fights the ninjas at the bottom of the stairs while Elektra desperately attempts to kill Kirigi at the top of the stairs is such a claustrophobic, anxiety inducing moment. I don't know how but Miller and Janson make you feel like you're there experiencing all the tense panic and fighting. No matter how slow you read it, you feel that rush in your soul as you bounce between Matt and Elektra.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2011 IDW) #65: The Turtles throw a Christmas party and just about every single cast member so far is featured. Mateus Santolouco's art has never looked better, filled with a whimsical fancy for the Holiday and thrown into some experimental storytelling perspectives. This one is guaranteed to make you happy.

Best of DC Blue Ribbon Digest #22: Christmas With the Super-Heroes: A digest sized stocking stuffer that contains my beloved "The Seal Men's War On Santa Claus!" An essential Comfort Food Comics for me, not just at the Holidays, but all year round. The other stories are also Holiday classics, including another old personal CFC fave, Justice League of America #110 - "The Man Who Murdered Santa Claus!"

The Legend of Zelda #2 (Valiant Comics): Growing up we had a bunch of the Valiant Nintendo comics and they comprise some of my earliest memories. None more so than this one. I can remember being like four years old and feeling very outraged that Link kept being tricked. Hahaha I still love this story of that weird diapered man sprite from Zelda 2 as a buddy of Link's.

Hawk & Dove Vol. 3 #20: Dove goes Christmas shopping and ends up in a comedic Die Hard parody all drawn by the master Kevin Maguire. I remember reading this when I was younger and didn't even know who Hawk or Dove were and I STILL LOVED IT!! It's that fantastic!

Klaus and The Crisis in Xmasville: What if Coca-Cola bought Christmas and replaced Santa with their own werewolf Santa from the Dark Multiverse? God bless Grant Morrison

Scarlet Spider Vol. 2 #12: Kaine wants to be hardcore, but the Marvel Universe won't let him was the best premise for a Kaine solo book and I will always treasure this excellent series. My favorite issue is this one where Kaine wants to get drunk and be edgy again but his Parker genes, his new life and his new friends won't let him. Throw in a group of Santa themed criminals, the "quiet downtime plot where the characters hang out" plot you must be sick of reading about by now, and the extremely pleasing Reilly Brown art and you have an instant Holiday classic!

Spider-Man's Tangled Web #21: Darwyn Cooke and J.Bone did two issues of this title that felt like some 50's Alternate reality Marvel Universe and they both were incredible. This one is on a rarified level though for being such an entertaining and heartwarming Christmas chaos story that juggles about a dozen characters so damn well. God this makes me miss Cooke. Damn. RIP

Daredevil Vol. 1 #225: I've had a real internal struggle during multiple rereads of Daredevil: Born Again where I get so whisked away by David Mazzuchelli's art and wonder if it should be in these CFC boxes but those last two issues always let me down compared to the perfection of it's start, and I always end up vetoing it from this list. While I am consistently in awe of Mazzuchelli's art in that story, I find myself loving this issue's art by him even MORE. The opening splash page alone is a Rockwellian portrait fit for framing. This is a strange little story that uses The Vulture to symbolize death as Matt fights that symbol to get over his own depression and suicidal thoughts to want to live again. Denny O'Neil gives us such a fascinating, unique take on The Vulture while also constantly showing and telling us how legit of a threat he is. It's really wonderful angle for him that I haven't really seen in any other appearance of him. All this together makes this such a standout issue.

Spider-Man: The Jackal Files: This isn't exactly a comic, it's more a framing sequence with a set of Who's Who/Official Handbook style pin-up info pages for all the major Spider-Man characters during my favorite Spidey era, The Clone Saga. Rather than being just a boring fact file thing though, the entire book is narrated by The Jackal, as written by the vastly underrated Spidey Legend, Todd DeZago. DeZago is a naturally witty writer and instead of this being a groanfest, he makes this whole thing quite humorous. I had this as a kid and my experience and deep personal connection to it is almost exactly the same as The Parker Years oneshot above.

Batman: Gotham Adventures #51: I was such a fan of these latter era Batman Adventures comics as they tended to have more free reign to carry the continuity forward as the series had ended by this point. This is an emotional issue focusing Mr. Freeze and his wife Nora reuniting since she's been thawed and remarried, with a HUGE twist along the way. I'm not a fan of the Batgirl relationship with Batman but this is the only time I've ever been on board with it. Terry Austin's thick inks over Brad Rader's DCAU/Kirby style makes some spectacularly unique and moody art.

Batman Adventures Vol. 2 #15: The sequel to Gotham Adventures #51 as Nora takes the main character role for another incredibly moving analysis of her and Victor's relationship ending in an inversion of their usual roles. These two stories were written by Jason Hall, who hasn't written much else besides this, which is a real shame, as these are STAGGERINGLY good and would be hailed as some of the best episodes of the Animated Series if they had been the cartoon.

What If? Vol. 2 #4: What if the Alien Costume had possessed Spider-Man? Oh man! What a classic! I love this horror story of the Symbiote as this malevolent being that drains the life from it's host and is always seeking out a stronger host to bond with. This is after Venom's debut by like a year but also way before a lot of the hard rules of the Symbiote were nailed down so it's fun to see this wild alternate take. We get the Symbiote bonding with The Hulk and then Thor, both of which are incredibly cool to see way before Marvel's publishing plan became "Oops, All Venoms!". The decrepit old man Peter becomes after the Symbiote leaves him, Black Cat's revenge mission, and the brutal shock ending; this one is full of great moments. And it's all drawn by a pre superstar Mark Bagley!

The Music Man Adaptation (Dell Comics 1963): I'm such a huge fan of the 1962 film, The Music Man and watch it quite often with my wife. I was pleasantly surprised to see an old comic adaptation of the movie one day. It's a bit.....dry as they do not adapt any of the songs so a ton of the magic is lost but the main gist is all there done with solid artwork and effort which I appreciate. The standout for me is they write out little Winthrop's lisp with -th on all the S words he speaks which is a really fun and charming touch.

Essential X-Men #38: This is a UK reprint title of X-Men that packages together Uncanny X-Men #328 and Sabretooth Special #1. Uncanny #328 is one of Joe Mad's best issues during his run with God Tier art of Boom Boom, Psylocke and Sabes and the Sabretooth Special is an oversized gem by Fabian (Never written a bad comic) Nicieza and 90's less lines Gary Frank! Both of these are two of my favorite single issues so I was overjoyed to find them mashed together as one alltimer single issue complete with exclusive new cover art. The Sabes special is really good and gives a lot of nuanced character depth to Sabes as he tangles with Caliban and then the Original 5 X-Men, each of whom get the same great character depth, particularly Jean.

Everything Sucks: Friends Forever: More of Michael Sweater's Curb Your Enthusiasm meets Tiny Toons franchise. My favorite one yet! This one is really funny from Noah grousing out loud which leads a girl to shockingly talk to him and invite him over to the stupid ass hijinks as the cast gets locked in the bathroom. The art here is spectacular, experimental, diverse and grand and you can noticeably see Sweater's improvement as an artist.

Krania #1: Brian McCray, one my alltime favorite creators, brings us this pulpy Swords & Sorcery Conan-esque tale of Krania, the Warrior Woman. These are such interesting comics because McCray toes the line between satirizing those old Conan Magazines, subtly communicating he's reinterpreting them with a revisionist take, while also not - at it's core these are fun dumb barbarian romps where the creator, the reader and the material are all in on it. McCray takes the thought of "Yeah this shit is goofy and fantastical but isnt that fun?" and plays it straight. The refreshing part is McCray flips gender roles and gives us all the self aware parody tropes of these types of tales but that's not his intent. This isnt meant to sock you in the face with those elements to stand out as something unique. None of that is in the material blatantly. McCray just gets the appeal of his influences and gives us an amazing love letter to the genre. I also have to point out how impressive his shift from whimsical, cartoony art to bone crunching realism fight comics is done and how well it all blends.

Krania #2: More of the same from above but now in color!! The fun of this one is that McCray is free of doing the establishing story and hitting the usual tropes for the homage pull in readers effect and is allowed to start building his own world and cast in his way. I'm constantly impressed by how well McCray conveys movement and the impact and feel of fights. I love to FEEL a fight in comics, bone against bone, sinew against sinew, the shock and blinding impact of blows. There are a lot of fights in this one and the artistic skill is on another level.

Marvel Riot #1: A oneshot classic Mad Magazine style roast of the X-Men Age of Apocalypse event. HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS EXISTED UNTIL A FEW WEEKS AGO!??! You'd think something like this would be lame and corny, but the great thing here is it is absolutely BRUTAL! They go in so hard eviscerating everything about the event, the creators, the X-Men, Marvel and the comics industry as a whole. I kept thinking I cant believe theyre doing this while reading. It ends up being hilarious because of that self awareness and the art is great too.

Marvel Collector's Edition - Charleston Chew (1992): Man how odd that Charleston Chew/Sugar Babies was a candy Marvel partnered with for packaging, cards and promo comics like this. I've never had Sugar Babies and I cant reliably even say I've ever had a Charleston Chew. So weird. anyways, this thing is pretty good! We get 4 stories in this one. One is a Spider-Man vs The Eel story by Tony Isabella that is actually pretty funny and has some cute Peter/MJ moments. There's a Howard Mackie written Danny Ketch Ghost Rider story which is fine but more cool it's by the character's actual writer at the time. Man I wish I had this thing as a kid, those two were my favorite characters then. Another story has the Silver Surfer help a red skinned, elf eared blonde alien with humongous breasts in a jungle girl bikini. So you know, it obviously RULES. And the last and best story is a Sam Keith drawn Wolverine and Jubilee tale. It's always a treat to see Sam Keith's Wolvie but it's also really cool to see his Jubes too, complete in the X-Uniform circa Uncanny 275.

X-Men Firsts #1: This is a really cool 1996 single issue package that reprints the first appearance of Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit, and Sinister in Avengers Annual 10, Uncanny X-Men 221 & 266, and Incredible Hulk 181, complete with a new Tim Sale cover. I love that Michael Golden Annual where Rogue first appears, it's one of the best Marvel comics ever published. The Gambit one, even with dull art, is very fun to see the early not defined Remy, back when he had ambiguous powers and was meant to be an aspect of Sinister. The Sinister first appearance is a Claremont/Silvestri/Green personal fave where Madelyne Pryor fights The Marauders in a hospital in a quietly exceptional issue of Uncanny. And lastly the old school Wolvie debut where he fights the Hulk is always a fun read. What a fun single issue jammed full of old issues that then, and even more so now, are too expensive to find themselves.

What If? Vol.2 #44: What If Venom had possessed the Punisher? Kurt Busiek and Luke McDonnell bring us this awesome story of The Punisher using the Symbiote and the Symbiote using The Punisher on their separate revenge crusades.

Superman 80 Page Giant (2010): This one is here for Kathryn Immonen and Tonci Zonjic's wonderful Lois and Clark story. Easily up there in contention for my favorite Lois or Clark story ever. It is so endearing and funny and Lois reminds me so damn much of my own wife here. Some of the other stories are very meh but there's two good'ns at the end that really shows the wholesome innate goodness of Superman and how he affects so many people positively.

Parallax: Emerald Night: I loved Hal Jordan's sloppy turn from boring GL to DC's Magneto and if I had my way he never wouldve sacrificed himself in Final Night. That being said I can't complain about this heart wrenching one shot we got of the character tackling his final moments before he reignited the Sun. Ron Marz once again gives us an excellent character study of this Hal Jordan, coming to terms with who he is now and trying to reconcile that with the past he left behind.

The New Mutants Vol. 1 #51: An excellent one off issue with GORGEOUS artwork from Kevin Nowlan. This is a super weird little story where the New Mutants end up with Xavier when he was in space with Lilandra and the Starjammers(I'm always shocked they never did more with Xavier in space, but also I'm thankful as I loved when Claremont would write people out of the book and they'd stay that way). The art is just stunning, STUNNING I TELL YOU! I really enjoy the interplay between the Professor and Magik in this issue as they both deal with their own struggle to stay in space or go home, to remain stuck in the fear of the past or trust the path they're on and stride into the unknown future. Sadly Xavier basically mindrapes Ilyana into going forward, but I'd argue it's a pretty great character study of him that he has the best intentions and seems so wonderful but is actually unable to truly be the man he believes he is and completely unwilling to go along with anyone who disagrees with himself.

G.I. Joe Yearbook #4: This bad boy makes the list for the very short but incredible story by Larry Hama and Tony Salmons in the back. Scarlett and Snake Eyes as civilians in suits and shades go to a country gas station and Snake eyes ends up having to Macgyver his way out of an armed robbery. All done in Salmon's wonderfully unique abstract artstyle.

Superman Villains Secret Files & Origins: One of the alltime best Secret Files stories. There is no reason Stuart Immonen had to go this HARD, but he did. See, the story is Lex Luthor telling his newborn daughter, Lena all about various Superman foes, but Immonen presents the tales as parodies of Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland. IT'S GLORIOUS! A work of art!

Adventures of The Fly #9: So I was scrolling through a scan of an old Archie Super Hero Digest bored until I came across a story involving some cute and unique catgirl who I came to find out was named the very inventive Cat-Girl. Id never read any of the MLJ/Red Circle/Impact/Archie superhero comics before so I was quickly fascinated by The Fly with his magic ring and buzz gun and seemingly ENDLESS and unlimited array of superpowers related to anything bugs that he could call forth whenever. Cat-Girl seemed like a pretty blatant Catwoman ripoff and she was quite enjoyable freeing cats and seeming to get along with The Fly as he carried her back to her cat infested secret lair. The true hook of Cat-Girl happened here as she instantly betrays him and tells him to solve the riddle of who she is. At this point I expect her to be some character in this universe I don't know but instead she turns out to be the literal Sphinx of Ancient Egypt, an immortal and all powerful cat goddess. MY GOD DO I LOVE THE BATSHIT INSANITY OF SILVER AGE COMICS! Naturally I had to track down every appearance of Cat-Girl. Sadly not many exist. She's in the next issue of The Fly and it's fine but not CFC worthy, so I moved on to her next comic in some other Archie superhero book called.....

Adventures of The Jaguar #4: There was Cat-Girl again, front and center on the cover, proudly proclaiming her return. I'd never even heard of The Jaguar before but quickly came to see he was a very blatant ripoff of The Fly. Both can fly, magic belt instead of a ring, all the vague powers of the animal kingdom rather than bugs. The only unique thing going for him was the fact he had a pencil moustache he magically lost when turning into The Jaguar. I kid, he can also mentally talk to animals. This one ramps up the Silver age insanity even further as The Jaguar faces off against Cat-Girl before she's transported to a dimension where everything is paper thin and the animals in this dimension wanted to help The Jaguar fight Cat-Girl for whatever reason. God, it's insane and amazing. I had to continue to sate my Cat-Girl obsession into....

Adventures of The Jaguar #5: I was reading through this one wondering if there was some mistake on the wiki as I was receiving no Cat-Girl. Instead we get a story about a race of shirtless blue pear shaped aliens who serve some Queen named Tola who for some reason doesn't look like them but instead a 60's actress in a swimsuit. They've brought her to Earth because The Jaguar is the finest specimen to be her mate. They capture him and just when Tola is about to kiss him a gigantic talking lion emerges from the jungle to save him. The aliens shout "The L..Lion Talks! It Has Intelligence!" to which the lion replies "Yes-and the power to carry out my ideas!" Hahahah WONDERFUL! The Lion scares the aliens off planet and it is here where we reveal THE LION IS CAT-GIRL, acting far more bratty and flirty, proclaiming only she will be the one to marry The Jaguar! It was at this point I started to feel like I was reading Silver Age Superman and Lois Lane comics. This feeling only intensified further when reading....

Adventures of The Jaguar #6: Cat-Girl mustve proved popular or they just liked her a lot as she returns once again in two of the three stories in this one!! Cat-Girl is fully smitten now and this turns into an issue of Lois Lane as she schemes to make The Jaguar fall in love with her. She makes a love potion and douses him with it so the next person he sees he'll fall in love with. Shenanigans of course ensue, as Jill Ross comes through the door looking to be The Jaguar's secretary and he instantly falls for her. This enrages Cat-Girl even though she knows it's the potion, leading to this hilarious panel of her throwing a beaker at his head. At this point for no reason at all, the story is revealed to be a dream. Relieved, Cat-Girl goes to visit The Jaguar only to see Jill Ross actually debut and join the book as The Jaguar's co-worker who suspects he is The Jaguar, cementing her place as this book's Lois Lane thematically and visually. This in turn puts Cat-Girl into the Lana Lang role as the fellow scheming romantic interest. This is blatantly done even more so in the second story as Cat-Girl gives herself a magical makeover into a leopard spotted top and boots with a blue mini-skirt and gloves as well as a new red hair ponytail look. Cat-Girl hatches multiple schemes involving a giant living robot and Ancient Egypt monsters she summons from the past, that immediately go awry. To deal with the monsters, The Jaguar travels undersea to find someone named Kree-Nal, The Sea Circe From Space, who can turn anything living into a monster or vise versa. She ends up being a green skinned, platinum white haired knockout in a bathing suit that also is in love with The Jaguar and wants kisses after she helps save the day, leaving a regretful Cat-Girl crying as she's inadvertently drawn another romantic rival into this Jaguar love sweepstakes. HAHAHA WHAT?!?!? AMAZING!! Naturally I had to see if Kree-Nal was in any other issues which led me to....

Adventures of The Jaguar #3: There's Kree-Nal on the cover! Kree-Nal is amazing. A hot green skinned white haired sea creature alien that pops up out of the water and starts turning everyone spitefully into gross animal creatures because she "despises imperfection and ugliness". She's such a hilariously arrogant brat. I love it. Naturally though she's struck by The Jaguar's ruggedly handsome good looks. She wants kisses so he's like look If I ever get ugly, you'll stop all this ok? and she's like of course you're so hot that will never happen now shut up and give me the damn kisses. Inexplicably, The Jaguar morphs his head into a real jaguar's head, a power he has never shown before or after. She gets real grossed out and returns to the sea. It is some of the absolute FINEST Silver age insanity. At this point I feel like The Jaguar is just Superman with Jill Ross as his Lois, Cat-Girl as his Lana, and Kree-Nal as his Lori Lemaris, so I had to look up who wrote these. Turns out it's Robert Bernstein, who go figure, wrote a ton of Superman franchise books during this time period too. I was right! These are just the absolute best of the batshit weird Supes romances of the time but with the dullard Jaguar instead of Supes. Of course, I NEEDED more of this romantic trio and thankfully I was served well with....

Adventures of The Jaguar #7: In this one The Jaguar is having anxiety dreams about not being able to handle all the shit he usually has to deal with and he disappears on a mission. Jill Ross, Cat-Girl and Kree-Nal jump into action handling the threats the world faces in his absence. They are really run ragged throughout the day on mission after mission until Jill realizes the life size statue she made of The Jaguar (YES! YES, SERIOUSLY!) has a different number of whiskers on the uniform. Yep that's right, The Jaguar has just been standing there all day motionless pretending to be a statue watching them as they are being tortured by these catastrophes as well as the emotional turmoil of him being missing, possibly dead. See, he was a little worried he may be too busy someday and needed to make sure someone, hopefully all of them stepped up to deal with it. HAHAHAH SILVER AGE BASTARD! It's at this point they all put their hands in and he proclaims them the "Jaguar Rescue Team". Yes, amazing, everything I could ever want. I am fully obsessed with these characters at this point. I love them so much. It's at this point I want the Jaguar to permanently exit his own book so we can just get the adventures of these three. Sadly that doesn't happen and the only other time they ever team up is.....

Adventures of The Jaguar #9: A bizarre robot alien travels the universe to find iron, the sustenance for his people and finds it on Earth, obviously putting him in conflict with The Jaguar. Jaguar is almost immediately murdered, essentially, and this robot lays eyes on Jill Ross and gets SUPER horny for her. She plays him for time and assembles the "Jaguar Rescue Team" and the three of them take over the comic to save the day in a grand adventure and bring Jaguar back to life, again showing that they should headline this book and not the dolt Jaguar. At this point I was so madly in love with them all and their crazy ass adventures that I couldnt possibly imagine it to be the end. That's right, they never team up again. In fact this is pretty much the swan song for each. Jill continues to be in the few remaining issues of Jaguar sparingly. Kree-Nal is never seen again as far as I know. And Cat-Girl, my beloved Cat-Girl, the cause of this grand journey, well, she shows up another time briefly, and they even make it seem like she's end game for Jaguar, but then her next appearance she reveals off panel that radiation has caused her to lose all her powers and she's just a normal human socialite with a completely different visual with black hair. They turn her into a less interesting Selina Kyle. I've rarely been more angry. Damn!! Oh well, I sure didn't expect it but these random ass issues of some obscure lame superhero ended up being CFC alltimers for me. The magic of Comfort Food Comics right there people.

Superman & Batman Magazine #7: This entire series is pure gold. A spinoff of the Batman Adventures line of DC Adventures, each issue was a short magazine styled package for kids that would establish the DC Animated Universe before the DCAU existed all done by Adventures mainstay artists Mike Parobeck and Rick Burchett. This one is my favorite as the focus is on my beloved Kyle Rayner. We get a poster, Fact Files, and a wonderful Kyle Rayner Adventures story written by the man himself, Ron Marz. While that's my main reason for loving this one it also contains a fantastic Dan Jurgens penned Superman/Doomsday Adventures tale as well as a whole section titled Milestone For Kids! That's right, the Milestone Imprint gets a spotlight and their actual creators do their own version of Milestone Adventures with Icon, Rocket, Hardware and Static. It's such a cool idea and I love they got that exposure and this rare version of those amazing characters.

Jean & Scott Vol. 1: A collection of Max Wittert's hilarious X-Men fan comics. Legit probably the best X-Men comics ever made. The blend of all the comic and Animated Series tropes filtered through Jean being just the worst, but EXTREMELY relatable, is pure genius.

Jean & Scott Vol. 2: More of the same of the above. Still the funniest shit ever made.

Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #287: How fascinating that the best Whilce Portacio era X-Men story is the only one he's not credited in whatsoever. I LOVE this issue. It's maybe the most cohesive issue of the post Claremont Image Boys tenure and certainly the only one that makes you think "Ok, maybe we are in good hands, maybe we will be ok that Chris is gone." Jim Lee and Scott Lobdell pack this one full of tantalizing stuff! The Witness, named Lebeau, which was revealed to be Gambit's last name in X-Men #6, which dropped right before this issue, is so mysterious and intriguing. The X-Traitor storyline is introduced here, and will dominate X-Men media for years before fizzling out, but here it's done in such a mysterious and fun way that you are fully on board. As much as I think Bishop's introduction a few issues earlier is done well enough in the way he's a fully formed character whole cloth from his first panel, I don't actually think that story arc is good. Fitzroy SUUUUUCKS, as does the complete waste of the Hellions as they are all murdered, as well as the ending of just leaving Bishop, the XSA members and the escaped future convicts just out there. Portacio just is a terrible plotter and writer. He's a generally great dude and a fantastic artist but just should be told what to draw and end there. More care and potential is given to Bishop, his compatriots Malcom and Randall, Fitzroy, and the future era Bishop comes from in this issue than literally any other instance, which is a huge shame, but it erases any bad taste from the intro story. Rather than leave Bishop with just the admittedly genius hook of X-Men fanboy now stuck in the past with the X-Men, Malcom and Randall are murdered giving Bishop a bit more emotional depth and the sole focus he deserves, and he finally joins the X-Men motivated to protect them from the mysterious traitor. This is also the first issue to feature John Romita Jr. back on Uncanny. No lie, his brief time on the title with Dan Green is to me the best his art has ever looked. Sadly Green isn't with him here as a gaggle of 5 different inkers instead do the job including Scott Williams, Bob Wiacek, Bill Sienkiewicz and Dan Panosian, who just happen to be some of my favorite inkers ever, so it's still a visual feast!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Villains Micro-series #7: BEBOP AND ROCKSTEADY! How can you not love them? Dustin Weaver and Ben Bates bring us this absolute romp with our favorite idiot rhino and warthog mutants. Weaver's work with the duo is a huge bright spot for the IDW Turtles and anytime we get to see artwork from Ben Bates is a time for intense celebration. He's an artistic God and I love anything he ever does.

Savage Tales Vol. 1 #5: My memory is hazy but when I was a kid we'd sometimes visit this antique shop in our town and one day my Mom bought some marble top chest thing to put in our home. Now I remember this comic being inside a drawer in that antique, but it may have just been on top of it in the store. Either way when we wound up with that chest we wound up with this comic. What an absolute treasure!! I didn't know Conan really at the time but finding a comic while forced to antique with your Mom? Like a prayer answered to a little boy obsessed with comics. It was insane!!! To this day, the Conan story within which ends with a hilarious joke of him choosing a horse over a woman, is MY Conan story. The end all be all top of the pile Conan story. Of course, it's written by Roy Thomas but it also features great art by Jim Starlin, which is always something I forget but end up pleasantly surprised at every time I reread it. The bonus in this one is an equally great Ka-Zar story by Stan Lee and John Buscema about lizard people and their half naked Queen.

Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #310: As I mentioned above, there's a short little run of Scott Lobdell, John Romita Jr., Dan Green Uncanny X-Men that only lasts from 300-311. It's one of my alltime favorite runs for the X-Franchise and features what I consider to be John Romita Jr's best art. He was KILLING it these few years in the early 90's and his stuff never looked better than when he was inked by my favorite inker ever, Dan Green. Although my fave issue of this run is the Thanksgiving issue listed above, this is a close second. Nothing really happens here, sure the X-Cutioner infiltrates the Mansion, but really it's a quiet downtime issue where Cyclops and Cable FINALLY hash it out about their father and son relationship all while the male X-Men hang out at a bar waiting for Scott to have his Bachelor Party. Sabretooth pops in too, during his captivity/rehab at the Mansion period. If you've been reading these entries you should see that all these ingredients are what I crave and love, so this one is a tremendous favorite. (Super Bonus: This one has an order form for Thunderstrike and ads for Mega Man X, Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition, and the 94 Fleer X-Men Cards)

Captain America Vol. 1 #367: Ah my beloved Acts of Vengeance, a real VIP event in my CFC boxes. This is an absolute classic one shot where after Magneto and Red Skull are forced together into the villain consortium, Mark Gruenwald rightly asks "Why doesnt Magneto, survivor of Auschwitz, FUCK UP the Red Skull?" and devotes an entire issue to that. It's great and so satisfying.

The New Mutants vol. 1 #52: Half of this issue is devoted to a Danger Room sequence of the Marauders wrecking the New Mutants, which is cool and fun to look at because it's Rick Leonardi, but the real draw here is Headmaster Magneto supporting and bonding with Magik. In the previous issue, as I wrote about above, Xavier and Ilyana are compared in their personalities and difficult circumstances, but Xavier ultimately fails her, as he literally forces her to obey him and do what he wants against her free will without any doubts in what he's doing. It's for the greater good, Magik be damned, his way is right. In this story we get the contrast to Xavier's and Magneto's leadership methods as Magneto thinks how wrong he is for the position and how he could force Magik to obey him, but that would achieve nothing. Instead he calmly and gently listens to her and supports her in any way she needs. He opens up and becomes vulnerable discussing his own villainous dark side and past, comparing it to her own struggles in an empathic way and even offers to fight the Hordes of Limbo for her. A very important thing here is he offers, but takes no action without her consent. She ultimately says no, she needs to deal with her own problems and through all this feels empowered and closer than ever before with ol Mags. It's a resounding breakthrough and a wonderful character study for both of them. I don't know if Claremont was purposefully contrasting Xavier and Mags' approaches between issues but this was such a meaningful stepping stone on his years long rehab of the character into the rightful leader of the X-Men over Xavier as planned.

Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #183: This is the issue where Wolverine and Nightcrawler bring Colossus to a bar to fuck him up after he broke up with Kitty Pryde, ultimately pushing him into an insane brawl with The Juggernaut. Now don't get me wrong, THAT PART IS AWESOME!! But, there's so much more going on here besides that. From the brutally real break up convo Kitty and Colossus have, complete with Kitty's thought bubbles, to Storm, Rogue and the others dealing with their own shit in the mansion, all the way to the seemingly random girl Juggs is macking on at the bar being revealed to be Selene, this issue is a perfect example of Claremont's long form character development and storytelling every issue. This is also an early John Romita Jr./Dan Green collab and while not as incredible as their early 90's team-up, it's still so nice to look at.

Beautiful Duck Comics #1: A collection of Brian McCray's strange and sexy duck women. I'm a sucker for literally anything McCray draws, so I was already down, but I really enjoyed these esoteric slice of bizarre life tales with a cast of hot ducks. I mean I shouldn't have to say more than hot ducks. It rules. We as a society need more hot ducks. I really hope we get more of these from McCray.

Generation X Vol. 1 #25: I don't remember how I came to own this one. Maybe I found it at a comic shop, maybe it was gifted to me(people always knew I liked comic books so family and family friends would get me boxes at garage sales or random ones they'd find). Who knows? That memory escapes me. But I've had this one a long time. Well before I read any of the rest of the series. Maybe that's why I love it so much OR maybe it's because of the incredibly stylistic Chris Bachalo art that exists in a very small moment of time where it's a blend of his earlier Mark Buckingham inked stuff and his polarizing late 90's style OR maybe it's because it spotlights how weird and wonderful this series was with it's focus on Howard the Duck, his girl Bev, a random Recorder alien woman and the kid crew of Artie, Leech and Franklin Richards they'd babysit in this series OR maybe it's because it's a double sized special issue that is also Scott Lobdell's farewell to the series. The only downside to this issue is that the cast of kids besides Penance and Jubilee aren't really even in it.

X-Force Vol. 1 #25: This and Wolverine #75 listed above are comics I've had nearly my whole life. I didn't buy them and I have no actual origin for where they came from. My best guess is my oldest brother bought them because of the hologram card special covers they had. He never really bought X-Men comics though, so who knows?? Either way I've had this one since I was a kid and it was my first exposure to Cable and the cast of characters here. The idea presented here that Cannonball is the best leader of mutants because he's been taught by Xavier, Magneto and Cale and is able to blend all of their teachings together into an ideal form of leadership is something that's stuck with me forever. I love it so much and besides Mike Carey briefly toying with this, it's never been utilized as it should. This is just a great issue packed with wonderful character interplay between Cable and the team as he finally gives a long exposition to all his secrets (aka Rob Liefeld's dumb writing), as well as between Magneto and his former students that are in X-Factor. Greg Capullo's early art also rules even if he has like 10 inkers here.

The New Mutants Vol. 1 #53: The New Mutants go to a dance thrown by the Hellions at their Massachusetts Academy!!! What fun. Some of my favorite moments are Dani Moonstar and Warpath bonding over being leaders and Native Americans, Magik threatening a terrified Empath while they dance, Catseye and Rahne going animal form and running around, and Doug Ramsey gambling and drinking and hanging out with the Hellions bad girls and acting like an idiot just like an insecure teen would. (Fuck you Doug for that slap)

Captain America Vol. 1 #395: I've written before about how most of the comics I had as a kid was a big random batch of Marvel Comics that came in a Sears/JC Penney green Marvel shortbox in these Collector's Packs they used to do in the 80's to the early 90's you'd find in the Sears or JC Penney Wishbooks. The green shortbox had like 75 random Marvel Comics in it from the line between 1990-1991. Me and my brother may have gotten two of these from our parents. So yeah for most of my life the comics I owned were a random assortment of early 90's Marvel. One of which was this random Cap issue. Now as a kid, unless it had Spidey or Ghost Rider or like Sauron or someone dinosaur related I was barely interested. Me and my brother though for our whole life fondly remembered the tagline on this one : The House That Dripped......DOUGH?!" and still to this day say it stupidly and dramatically to each other. As an adult I'm delighted to find it a rather fun issue with my beloved Eric Masterson featured heavily. They even have Cap admonish Eric, Quasar and Herc for the events of Thor 437 which I wrote about above!! What a treat to find!! This is a comic that has survived with me throughout and will stay with me my entire life.

Adventures of Superman Annual #3: Ahh the Armageddon 2001 Annuals. They all dealt with some future story for the DC line and I generally love them all, good or bad. This one is a real fave as we get Superman after the death of Lois, leaving Earth and shacking up with Maxima. Nothing beats Lois & Clark, but damn if I don't love the idea of Supes and Maxima together and Louise Simonson gives us an oversized imaginary tale of just that with some early Bryan Hitch art.

DC Primal Age: I came across this 100 Page Giant while shopping at Target with my wife and had to buy it. This was a Target exclusive book that tied into Funko's brief DC Primal Age toyline, which reimagined the DC Universe as a barbarian fantasy world with figures that were DC characters like the original Masters of the Universe toys. AWESOME! They were pretty neat and I'm bummed we never got Wave 3 and 4. I wanted that Supergirl and Catwoman damnit!! Anyways this book is an anthology of stories that function like the He-Man mini comics for this line. We start with a Marv Wolfman story that relies heavily on artist Scott Koblish to do everything in his power to make cool and interesting and he can barely do that. Somehow Wolfman makes this whole thing dull as can be. Man, Wolfman really sucks 95% of the time. Thankfully, the rest of the stories wash away that dullard's uninspired attempt with a roster of old school legends. We actually get a written AND DRAWN by Jerry Ordway tale featuring Wonder Woman and Solomon Grundy, a Louise Simonson and Phil Winslade beautifully illustrated story of the ice mage Mister Freeze, another Weezy tale about Batman with Brent Anderson art, an interesting Ordway written Joker story with Chuck Patton and Karl Kesel, and finally another Wolfman regular ass DC inventory story that thankfully Keith Pollard and Jose Marzan Jr. manage to save.

Thing Vol. 1 #15: This is another mystery comic we had for my entire life. Much like the Cap issue above this was one me and my brother fondly remember for the cover and the tagline. We said "It happened on yagwibzehejeye Street" to each other as much as we did the dough line. I never actually read it as a kid and was always baffled by it. Where the fuck is the Thing and why can he turn into this lame dude in a one piece bathing suit? Like what?? That red head's pretty and cool though. I was happy to get older and read more comics and finally get the required context and understand this story. It's actually a pretty fun little issue where Ben and his gal go to an alien bar. Somehow, like the Cap issue this one has survived all the different phases and moves in my life and I still own that battered copy. This one will also accompany me to my grave.

The Terrifics #25: Overall I felt the Dark Matter/New Age of DC Heroes thing by DC was a dumb failure of an idea that rarely went anywhere beyond "this is based on a Marvel character". (Sideways was cool though, him and his sleepy eyed friend. I wish they'd have given Sideways more love.) The Terrifics was always a weird this is pretty forced idea for a team but it usually had good art and out of left field ideas, and no issue exemplifies that more than this charming Choose Your Own Adventure issue with art by Dan Mora. It's pure fun.

Fantastic Four Vol. 1 #275: Man, I hate, like REALLY HATE but also love John Byrne. I don't get it. He's just the grade a worst manbaby idiot but also I love so many of his prime era comics and art, especially his dumb horny shit. This issue really embodies that love/hate relationship as the dude seriously takes a whole issue of FF to write a story where She-Hulk sunbathes topless and someone snaps pics of it and sells them to a dirty magazine. THAT'S IT! A WHOLE ISSUE! It's so stupid and sleazy. BUT it's also really fun to see sexy She-Hulk antics and it's quite satisfying to see Shulkie's attempt to stop it. Basically just like his run on She-Hulk, it's a titillating sexy romp with hilarious stupid satire nonsense. I hate it yet I also DEEPLY love it. That's Byrne for you!

Justice League International Vol. 1 #24: It's hard to pick specific bits of the JLI era to add to the CFC Canon as I greatly adore nearly every single issue of it so much, but this one has managed to carve out it's own corner of my brain. Mostly because of the Maguire drawn last tale where the glut of JL members have their party ruined by a small group of lame villains who never expected so many heroes to be in the same room together. But this also features stories with the wonderful art of Ty Templeton and Dan Spiegle, so it's like a full course comfort food meal.

Titans: Scissors, Paper, Stone: An Elseworlds future oneshot where Adam Warren is just left alone to cook. It's basically DC 2099, with very tenuous connections to the actual Titans, influenced by but allowed to really be it's own thing that can stand on it's own. It breaks my heart we never got to see Warren do more with this.

Origins of Marvel Comics: A 2010 oneshot where every page is a one off "story" showing the origin and throughline to the 2010 version of Marvel's teams and characters. I'm always shocked they got so many big name artists and the actual artists associated with those characters to do these.

Origins of Marvel Comics: X-Men: Same as the above but focused specifically on the X-Men. This one again gets big name artists associated with the characters, but also some nice unique surprises like Jill Thompson. The highlight surprisingly though is the writing team which includes second best X-Men writer ever Mike Carey, third best X-Men writer ever Chris Yost, and other fave X-writers like Peter David and James Asmus.

Harley Quinn Vol. 4 #29: The main story here is meh whatever. What I'm here for is the Adam Warren backup that is not only the traditional Warren hilarious and gorgeous, but also one of the best character studies for Harley ever done. Man, I'm realizing I REALLY LOVE Adam Warren. One thing that irks me so godamn much is they didn't have Warren do one of the three variant covers for this issue. THEY HAD HIM DO VARIANTS FOR ISSUES BEFORE AND AFTER, WHY WOULDNT THEY FOR THIS ONE?!?!? ARGHHHH! So I hunted down this Natali Sanders sexy nightgown one instead. I enjoy it a lot but would kill for a Warren cover of this one.

The New Mutants Vol. 1 #21: A quiet and charming down time issue with mutant teens being mutant teens AND it's drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz AND it's double sized?!? Pshh, forget it! What an absolute classic! Can you imagine just getting a regular monthly comic these days that's oversized and has Bill Sienkiewicz level art?? Godamn, this one is special.

Superman Vol. 4 #7: A one shot set during the time Clark and Lois were raising little Jon in Kansas. And all they do is go to the County Fair!! IT'S INCREDIBLE!!! This one really hits for me because we always have the Erie County Fair come to town where I live and since I was born it's always an annual community Big Deal. A quiet down time issue again, my absolute jam as you must know by now. Surprisingly, I always forget this one is drawn by Jorge Jimenez before he became a breakout star.

Immortal X-Men #5: I hate what the Krakoan X-Men era very quickly became after Hickman set up so much and can't stand much of what was published near the latter part of the era, but one exception was the EXCELLENT character work Kieron Gillen did with Exodus. I've always loved Exodus and felt he had so much story potential and had barely been used or explored since his debut in the 90's. My socials are gone now but I actually spent quite a bit of time making an Exodus infograph/reading order some years back. I love the guy and I've been waiting so many years for him to get his due. Mike Carey did some nice work with him but essentially he's been a blank canvas for much of his existence. Gillen's time with him has been a revelation(pun intended) as he's finally revealed what his power actually is in a deeply satisfying OHHHHH OK YEAHHH THAT'S GREAT moment earlier in the run in conjunction with his relationship with Hope Summers, and this deep dive issue that tied into the AXE event. From revealing new canon, to connecting and reframing old, this story finally gives Exodus the care and development he's always deserved.

Astro Dutchie: Aaron Ancheta is an online acquaintance of mine and it's been an honor to chat with him and see behind the scenes of the comics he makes. I'm absolutely in love with every single piece of artwork he's ever done. His long running and ever changing ACHTUNG!! Magical Girl Corps webcomic is always such fun to read. The huge bummer of all this is how none of it is in print so it was a godsend when he put out this stupid, hilarious side story for sale. It's a true joy to physically hold in my hands and a real gem in my collection.

Justice (1994): Not actually a comic but a collection of great content put together from the Japanese doujin fanzines Justice and Gadget. It's incredibly fascinating to read about the Japanese perspective on popular American comics from the 80s and early 90's and see the wide range of fan art many of these fan artists created.

Nation X #3: As I wrote above, Corey Lewis is my guy. He's my comics GOAT. He contributes a story in here about Cannonball. One of my fave X-characters by my dude??? Forget it! It's so entirely my shit. I love this fun little story so so much.

Superman #400: A momentous celebration of Supes. I'm not a huge fan of all the many short stories within, but they do honor the character very well and feature some inspired ideas and wonderful art. The real reason I love this one so much is the whole big package, including pin-ups by so many legends alongside all the stories. It's one of the alltime best anniversary comics.

X-Men: Curse of the Mutants - Storm & Gambit: This is such a weird, obscure little comic. It's a one shot tie-in to a largely forgotten and middling event where the X-Men fought vampires. It has no reason to be this good. We get a fantastic action packed adventure that features great characterization and character interplay between the X-Men that honors past continuity, really heartbreaking and strong moments, and it's all drawn by mega fave Chris Bachalo.

Ghost Rider Vol. 6 #35: Johnny Blaze in Japan versus a body horror demon that looks like Sailor Moon, all drawn amazingly by Tony Moore. What else could you ever ask for in a comic?

Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #309: Another in the Scott Lobdell/John Romita Jr. Uncanny run. Seriously I just love this run so much. This is another classic Lobdell "Quiet Issue" where the spirit of Magneto in Charles' mind forces him to examine his love life and failings as a man. It's Lobdell's best written issue in my mind. (My only nitpick with this issue is when the Mags spirit says "Ennnnt" like a buzzer wrong answer noise to Charles. Hahah I can't picture either man speaking that way)

Venom #150: Can we all sit and take a moment to appreciate that we get to live in an era where we can experience the mindblowing art of Tradd Moore? This is a severely overlooked anniversary one shot that features Moore doing his usual blowing up the artform style in an admittedly pedestrian written tale, but it doesn't matter because we get to see his spectacular take on the Symbiote and how it moves and works as well as plenty of other Venom history callbacks and dynamic fights. It's a visual masterpiece. There's also a fun bonus David Michelinie/Ron Lim 90's Venom story with gorgeous retro coloring.

X-Factor Vol. 1 #25: Easily the best issue of X-Factor. X-Factor Vol. 1 is a maddening title, always shifting from an insomnia cure to essential X-Book, even when Walt Simonson was drawing it. It never makes sense how it constantly goes from peaks to valleys. This one is definitely the highest peak as Angel is dramatically revealed to be Archangel to the team and we get big world conquering stakes with Apocalypse. It also features the best work from Walt during his tenure on the book.

Dragon Ball Part Four #6: More of Viz's initial American floppy comic version of Dragon Ball. One of my favorite gag fights in the whole series that hinges on Bulma's boobs popping out, fully uncensored in this unique publishing run. Also one of my fave Toriyama color pieces as the cover here!

Excalibur Vol. 1 #43: The best issue of Excalibur. Alan Davis' run on Excalibur is a real highmark of comics full of witty humor, zany antics, and peak character interplay. This issue is a perfect representation of all of that in one single issue package.

DC Universe #0: A 2008 50 cent hype comic that featured exclusive little preview stories for such stories as Legion of 3 Worlds, Batman RIP, Final Crisis and more written by Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns and featuring art from Doug Mahnke, George Perez, and more. It's such a wonderful snapshot of 2000's DC by the two main architects of the company during that period.

Martian Manhunter Vol. 2 #24: A flashback "imaginary story" set during the JLI days where J'onn becomes possessed and too addicted to Chocos and Hulks out needing his fix. It's a dark comedy masterpiece by John Ostrander along with a dream team of Doug Mahnke inked by Patrick Gleason.

FF Vol. 2 #9: I think Matt Fraction's FF is one of Marvel's alltime greatest comics and my favorite issue of the run is this silly downtime pool party issue. It features the whole sprawling cast in a fun filled setting bouncing off each other that really gets to highlight the found family theme of the series. It also features Joe Quinones filling in for the Allreds on art and he is always a MEGA fave of mine.

Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 #311: The last John Romita Jr. drawn issue of his Lobdell Uncanny run I love so much. I can't complain too much as Joe Madureira gets his rise to fame right after but I'm still annoyed we didn't get more of this creative team run after Editor Bob Harras basically tricked JR Jr. off the book. I felt Scott Lobdell was really gelling with Romita Jr. for these issues and finally coming into his own as a writer as he was really getting a handle on fusing his action issues and quiet issues together into just really good all around issues. This one is the best example of that as we get a really nice quiet character focus on Bishop, Jubilee and Storm that also features a kickass Sabretooth conflict and a weaving of the ongoing Phalanx subplot into the story. A bummer Dan Green doesn't ink the whole issue but Al Vey steps in and does a pretty great job even if he goes a bit too heavy on the lines.

Archie #635: An Occupy Wall Street storyline in Riverdale. The writing is fine. The reason it's here is because it's a Gisele Lagace drawn Archie. I find her art at all times captivating and gorgeous and it just fits Archie Comics so well. It's somehow still "classic Archie style" while also being something so fresh and new. She's just SUCH an incredible artist!

X-Men: Earthfall: A 90's deluxe reprint of Uncanny X-Men #232-234 where the Brood come to Earth and my beloved Outback X-Men need to murder the shit out of them, all while Madelyne Pryor deals with some serious psychological shit. This is my favorite story arc set during that special era and it's so cool they reprinted it all in one comic with a nice new Ian Churchill cover.

Dragon Ball Part 2 #2: This issue collects both chapters of the debut of Launch. It is a terrible tragedy and mystery that Toriyama forgets about her way later on as she's easily one of the best characters ever. I love her.

Batman Vol. 1 Annual #8: The absolute best of the 80's James Bond vibes Batman by Mike Barr, the GORGEOUS pencils and inks of underrated legend Trevor Von Eeden, and the mindblowing colors of Lynn Varley. This thing is a work of art. Seriously. Each page should be hung in a museum. The perspective work and the line work Von Eeden unleashes here are spectacular. And Varley's psychedelic blend of colors here are my favorite work she has ever done. It's a high stakes Ra's Al Ghul story (my fave Bats villain) which people often criticize for Batman not caring if he's complicit in Ra's dying. To me I think it's perfect characterization as I feel of all his villains, the "immortal" constantly resurrecting biggest threat madman, SHOULD and would be dealt with this way by Batman. He knows Ra's' whole deal by this point, he doesn't need to swing in and save him like a common criminal, he will never truly be rid of him.

Daredevil Vol. 1 #268: A haunting and overwhelmingly satisfying, brilliant examination of the human condition and Matt Murdock's entire personality and how he interacts with the world and all the people in it, in a brutal one and done by, you guessed it, Nocenti and JR Jr. again!

Magneto #0: A mid 90's Fatal Attractions prequel complete with holofoil cover that collects the two Magneto focused Classic X-Men stories by Chris Claremont and John Bolton, a new Fabian Nicieza endcap and a few pinups. The Magneto Classic X-Men stories are some of the best work Claremont ever did and are still the gold standard for Magneto and his characterization. As close to perfection as you can get. What a treat to have them in this wonderful little package with new extras. The only downside being this contains more of Nicieza's downright offensive and ill researched retcon to make Mags of Gypsy descent that he fully went into in X-Men Unlimited #2.

Classic X-Men #8: This battles it out with I, Magneto in the one shot above for best backup story in all of Classic X-Men, where we see Jean dying as she meets the Phoenix for the first time. Claremont destroys the whole "Phoenix and Jean are separate beings" retcon, and presents such a touching story of a girl and an omnipresent Force having a chat and reconciling the fact they are the same being, mind, body and soul, and ultimately choosing to live life and embrace all of its contradictory happiness, messiness, tragedy, and passion.

Everything Sucks: Noah's Millions: More Everything Sucks! Noah finds a bag of cash and hijinks ensue with the usual EXTREMELY relatable feelings and dialogue that accompanies every Everything Sucks comic. I adore the perfect sandwich and thrift store double page spreads in this issue as well as Calla's cute goth dress.

Dragon Ball Z Part 2 #8: The opening chapter of the Goku/Vegeta fight, arguably the greatest Shonen fight chapter ever made, featuring the most iconic and my favorite panels of the Dragon Ball Z era.

Generation X - Opening Volley: I LOVE Generation X but I also find the series to be highly disappointing. It starts off so ridiculously good and never reaches those highs again. I've read just about every interview or promo material they ever did for the title and Scott Lobdell had some big plans for the book, that by about the first year of the book existing, around issue #8 or post the Girl's Dorm exploding, he completely drops. The plan to continually develop the kids so they graduate and we get new classes of mutants coming in never happens. Mondo never really joins the team. M, Penance and Emplate all become something vastly different than conceived. Dozens of dangling plots or hints vanish. It becomes a Howard the Duck book. Mark Buckingham leaves and Chris Bachalo's artstyle changes so much. It's a huge bummer. BUT for a time, we got some gold nonetheless I truly cherish, including the absolute height of the series, this special promotional issue given away at the 1994 San Diego ComiCon, full of all the amazing potential the book promised. It represents Lobdell and Bachalo's original vision for the series set a bit into the future, before things quickly changed. The original thesis of the book and the team is all there, these are kids who won't necessarily become X-Men, but they will be taught and learn how to deal with the world that hates and fears them. Mondo is a main member. Emplate, M and Penance are all their own intriguing original characters full of mystery and potential without any St. Croix family connections or retcons. Jubilee functions as the main POV character. And it's all set directly after the Girl's Dorm has exploded. This is sadly, as far as Lobdell ever plotted out for the book prior to writing it. In those same interviews the man says he never plots past the issue he's writing for creative spontaneity and boy does that show, NEGATIVELY, in his work. He is the definition of no plot, all vibes comics. The beginning of Gen X, his trademark Uncanny X-Men quiet issues, all amazing and all very light on continuing story plot. This is what ultimately starts Gen X as a unique, brilliant masterpiece but quickly turns it into a bitter disappointment. A bonus is the copy I own is signed by Lobdell, Bachalo and Richard Starkings.

Dragon Ball Part 1 #5: More OG Dragon Ball, this time with the chapter of Yamcha peeping on Bulma getting out of the shower, presented here again in the fully uncensored glory of the Viz floppies.

Roxxon Presents: Thor #1: An absolutely hilarious laugh out loud romp that parodies everything in our current hellhole of American capitalist culture. Villain Dario Agger has bought the rights to the old Thor comics and name and using a combination of magic creates a soulless corporate hire Thor. That they got Greg Land, the finest example of a soulless corporate hire artist, to do the art is such a perfect choice. So godamn funny.

Rom and the X-Men: Marvel Tales: With Marvel reacquiring publishing rights to Rom, they released this oversized oneshot package that collects ROM #17-18 and #31-32, all written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Sal Buscema. Both stories feature X-Characters and the absolute horror show that is Hybrid, the disgusting and evil offspring of a Dire Wraith and a human, which Cerebro scans as a mutant. The first story features a great three way battle between Rom, Hybrid and the X-Men and has elements I love like Mantlo writing a Wolverine that sounds exactly like the Animated Series Wolvie and Buscema drawing a wonderfully emotive Kitty Pryde. The followup story features Rom vs Mystique's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and Hybrid again. This is a particularly important story as it is the only story featuring a pre X-Men Rogue that delves into her personality softening and going against Mystique's control and resembling the heroic X-Man she becomes. Buscema also does an incredible job drawing her and helps shift her from the old lady look into the Southern Sexpot we eventually get. It's an incredibly fun fast paced tale and integral to her character development and history.

X-Men Classic #54: This is a reprint of Uncanny X-Men #150 which is the first true story where Claremont retcons Magneto to be a Holocaust survivor and starts his magnificent and brilliant reclamation project for the character to change him from Silver Age maniac to noble leader of the X-Men. It is a stunning work of art, highlighting the best of Claremont's writing as well as the best of Dave Cockrum's art. Easily the highpoint of their second run together and arguably the best work they ever produced together. Why do I have the Classic X-Men reprint rather than the original issue? Well, I've always loved that new Andy Kubert cover, the brighter coloring, as well as the fact this 1990 reprint contains ads for the specific Marvel Universe Series 1, NBA Hoops and Skybox NBA Trading Card sets that I owned and adored and dominated my young life. Not to mention the Revlon Super Mario Bros Shampoo ad, another ad burned into my memory.

#comfort food comics canon #comfort food comics #me #my writing #comics #comic art #comic lists #lists #marvel #marvel comics #dc #dc comics #image comics #comic #comic writing #best comics #favorite comics #writing #comic books #comic book art #superheroes

[thewebcomicsreview]

The Webcomic Reviews Mini Reviews Masterpost, Part 1

People always ask me what I think of various webcomics, so I decided to start collecting my thoughts in one place! Click the images to go to the comic! Comic titles with a ⭐ after them are recommended, but even if I don't give a comic a star, that doesn't mean you won't like it.

[un]Divine ⭐

What is it: A highschooler sells his soul for a big titty demon gf, and now has to have anime battles against angels who keep trying to eat him.

The Good: Excellent art and monster designs, some of the better fights in webcomics.

The Bad: Danny is kind of a bland protagonist. The comic keeps threatening to veer into femdom porn, which may be a good thing for some of you. Comic is on permanent semi-hiatus and updates very infrequently

You should read it if: You wanna read a comic with big fights, big angels, and big titties.

Ava’s Demon

What is it: A bunch of kids possessed by demons have space adventures and are sad

The Good: Extremely good art. Occasional "high production value" moments with music and limited animation. The single-panel page format really highlights the art.

The Bad: Bland writing, weak characters. The single-panel page format really slows the flow of reading it.

You should read it if: Learning that the Wrath demon is named “Wrathia” doesn’t strike you as comically dumb

Awkward Zombie ⭐

What is it: It’s a comic that makes jokes about video games

The Good: It’s the best comic that makes jokes about video games

The Bad: If you haven’t played the game in question, you might not get the jokes. Awkward lack of zombies.

You should read it if: You like jokes about video games. I don't....it's not a complex premise.

Camp Weedonwantcha ⭐

What is it: A bunch of kids are left at summer camp forever by parents who’ve abandoned them to die. Wacky comedy and feel-good moments ensue.

The Good: Cute adventures with kids, reminiscent of some of the better Nicktoons from the 90s. Surprisingly emotionally effective when it wants to be.

The Bad: While the ending is satisfying in its own way, many plot threads go unresolved

The Terrible: Nickelodeon bought the rights and is sitting on them.

You should read it if: You like slice of life adventures with blasts of dark humor and feels

Cloudscratcher

What is it: Ducktales, with Genocide!

The Good: Cute and generally likable characters. Decently paced

The Bad: Doesn’t really excel at anything. Weirdly insistent about totally not being a furry comic even though it obviously is.

The Terrible: The author is a white nationalist, and the lack of link is intentional.

You should read it if: You like 80s cartoons and hate minorities

Cornucopia ⭐

What is it: A ninja is sent on a mission to literally steal candy from a nation of morons, fails.

The Good: Good art and well-paced storytelling. Clever use of different types of word balloons. High joke-per-page ratio

The Bad: Doofy tone may not be your cup of tea. Seems to have died young, though the first chapter is still a complete story

You should read it if: You like JelloApocalypse’s videos on YouTube, or his series Epithet Erased, since he made this

Dresden Codak

What is it: A genius inventor has wacky adventurers, then goes to a flying city and spends most of the comic’s run embroiled in a conspiracy run by evil anime villains.

The Good: The drawings are pretty. The early comedy adventures are quirky and charming.

The Bad: Panel layout and composition, especially early in Dark Science, is atrocious. Presents the comic as a feminist power fantasy, but the main character usually has her tits out and has had her clothes burnt off on multiple occasions.

The Terrible: The author is a notorious jerk. As of this writing, The Dark Science storyline has been running for eight years and has yet to reach a triple-digit number of pages, even though it’s a full-time job for which Diaz earns $4,000+/mo on Patreon.

You should read it if: You thought the best part of Ghost in the Shell was the lesbian orgy boat.

Drop Out (NSFW) ⭐

What is it: Two girlfriends go on a road trip to kill themselves in style

The Good: Short enough to be read in one sitting. Surprisingly good visual storytelling for a first comic. Realistic dialogue and high tension keeps you engaged even when not much is happening. Subtle details that don’t become apparent until a second read reward paying attention.

The Bad: Heavy subject matter. Lettering can be tough to read in early pages.

Content Warnings: Drug Abuse, Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Detransitioning….a list of all the difficult content in this comic would be so long it’d look like I’m making a joke. This is a heavy comic.

You should read it if: You like arty dramatic comics that deal with uncomfortable topics

Dumbing of Age

What is it: College students obsessed with late 80s-early 90s pop culture have relationship troubles

The Good: Of all the popular comics it’s trendy to shit on, this is by far the best. Solid gag-a-day strip with plots that move at a decent pace.

The Bad: Realistic depictions of abusive parents co-exists in the same comic as a literal superhero, leading to some jarring tonal confusion.

You should read it if: You like newspaper-style drama comics.

Everything Is Fine

What is it: Maggie and Sam are a normal married couple in a very strange world where proving your loyalty is the key to winning, and the best way to prove your loyalty is to show someone else is disloyal. And also everyone wears mascot suit cat heads all the time.

The Good: Well-written characters, a novel premise, and excellent pacing. I’m not the biggest fan of the webtoon “really tall page” format, but it’s taken advantage of at times for nice transitions

The Bad: The webtoon format can be irritating, and the worldbuilding is toeing the line between “compelling mystery” and “If there were two astronauts on the moon and one shot the other wouldn’t that be fucked up?”-ism.

Content Warning: Gore, Suicide themes. Every page with such content has a warning on it (which works better in Webtoon format, actually)

You should read it if: You liked the dystopian fiction fiction books you had to read in high school.

Gunnerkrigg Court ⭐

What is it: A girl attends a scientific school in a magical world that’s honestly not even slightly like Harry Potter but people say it is because they think J. K. Rowling invented British schools

The Good: Good art and fantastic panel composition. Slow-burning dark fantasy mystery.

The Bad: Takes a little while to find its groove. Starts feeling rushed and confusing near the end.

The Terrible: Boxbot

You should read it if: You like dark fantasy stories, or stories in general.

Homestuck ⭐?

What is it: A kid wants to play a video game but it’s downstairs and he doesn’t feel like talking to his dad yadda yadda yadda the universe explodes. Was briefly ungodly popular.

The Good: High production values, many updates are music videos with excellent music. Great character writing, especially in Act 5. Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale, did a lot of the music, and arguably isn’t even the best musician featured.

The Bad:The early part of the comic is brutally slow-paced, and is an impossible hurdle for some.

The Terrible: The ending is widely considered a major disappointment, and attempts to turn the comic into a franchise have been met with mixed reviews. The prose epilogues are deeply divisive.

Content Warning: A lot gorier than you might expect, mitigated by the cartoony art style, abusive relationships, the epilogue is just generally gross.

You should read it if: You want to see what the hell all those kids in grey face-paint at anime conventions were about

You should also consider: Just getting the music off the bandcamp, it’s really good.

Homestuck 2

What is it: A “dubiously canon” sequel to Homestuck, following from The Homestuck Epilogues, made by a different creative team. Follows two intersecting future timelines

The Good: The art is quite nice, and the new characters are fun and likable. Very bold in its ideas, for better or for worse it’s rarely boring. One of the few webcomics to be able to integrate trigger warnings clearly while remaining non-obtrusive with them. Faster-paced than the original Homestuck (low bar!) and has a few clever presentation ideas. Willing to be its own thing. If you’re worried it’s just “Homestuck 1 but more of it”, this is not that.

The Bad: Not at all a stand-alone comic, Homestuck 2 is completely incoherent if you’re not familiar with Homestuck 1 and the Homestuck Epilogues. Does not have the big multimedia productions Homestuck 1 was known for. Beloved characters from Homestuck 1 can come off really badly, which upsets a lot of people. If you’re looking for “Homestuck 1 but more of it”, this is not that.

The Terrible: At times, this comic is actively trying to piss off the readership by dragging out unpopular plot revelations. I actually like this about it, but unsurprisingly a lot of people don’t.

You should read it if: If you have to ask “Should I read Homestuck 2?”, the answer is probably “No”. This is a comic for people who are riding the Homestuck train to the bitter end.

You should also consider: Reading my Liveblog of it 

Kiwi Blitz ⭐

What is it: A precocious young girl gets a Kiwi-shaped robot and decides to become a superhero ridding the world of nefarious furries. More of a cute character drama than a superhero comic, and more of a superhero comic than a mecha one.

The Good: Cute artstyle. Not without dramatic stakes, but fairly light and fun throughout minus a few people getting shot. The android 42 is stand-out great character.

The Bad: Prone to long hiatuses as the author's main comic is now Sleepless Domain.

You should read it if: You liked Sleepless Domain, and are looking for a somewhat lighter comic by the same author.

Latchkey Kingdom ⭐

What is it: A girl goes on adventures in a magical land of idiots

The Good: Good but not overbearing comedy. Tight chapters. Strong side characters

The Bad: Thanks in part to Patron-backed stories in between the “main” chapters, can feel like an episodic series with no main character or driving plot

The Neutral: Willa is a semi-silent protagonist, and often gets overshadowed by the wacky people she meets. Cerberus Syndrome, executed well

You should read it if: You like adventure, silly characters, and jokes about Dark Souls.

Leasebound

What is it: Two lesbians are contrived into sharing an apartment, then the comic becomes a polemic about how trans people are evil. The second-best TERF webcomic on this list

The Good: This comic has no redeeming qualities

The Bad: It’s hella transphobic, and not even particularly interesting about it the way Sinfest can be. Everything that’s not hateful is boring, and the comic is practically going “Go on, be offended, blog about me, give me atteeeennnnttttiiiiiooooonnn!”

You should read it if: You really shouldn’t, and I’m not linking to it

Least I Could Do

What is it: Rayne Summers is the best at everything and you should listen to him

The Good: This comic updates on time regularly. Sometimes it updates without word balloons by accident, making it surreally funny

The Bad: Poorly thought-out political rants; few jokes, severe overuse of beat panels, copy-pasted art.

The Terrible: Designed to go viral, not to be entertaining; makes panels wordless just so they can be used as preview images

You should read it if: You have committed horrible sins and wish to atone

Legend of the Hare

What is it: I wrote this! A white trash loser girl is peer pressured into becoming a magical girl by a pair of pushy rabbits. A spinoff of the print comic Blade Bunny, written and drawn by the current creative team of Saffron and Sage.

The Good: Bouncy and cartoony art. Strong and memorable characters. Very weird and freewheeling.

The Bad: The plot is an absolute mess, stalling out and even going backwards at times, though it mostly comes together at the end. The tone is wildly inconsistent.

The Terrible: Kind of South-Parky in its humor sometimes

You should read it if: You like Saffron and Sage and want to see a comic by the same team when they were less experienced.

Nan Quest ⭐

What is it: In this spiritual sequel to Ruby Quest, a goat girl electrician sets out to fix a broken fuzebox and ends up ensnared in a psychological horror conspiracy.

The Good: Much more effective use of the simple MS Paint art style, with more color and some simple animations (animated panels being marked [A], a convention Homestuck would later adopt for its [S] sound panels). The characters are better fleshed out than in Ruby Quest, and the horror is more effective as well, with less gore and more tension.

The Bad: Though used effectively, the art is still MS Paint doodles. The story mechanics behind the mystery are much more ambiguous, which can be a plus.

Content Warning: Gore, threatened sexual violence.

You should read it if: You like Ruby Quest and/or psychological horror comics that can be read in a few hours.

Moby: Back from the Deep

What is it: A zombie killer whale attacks a small town.

The Good: The art is nice

The Bad: Egregious overuse of narration.

The Terrible: It’s a beat for beat ripoff of the movie Jaws, down to some characters having their names only marginally changed from their Jaws counterpart (e.g. “Alex Gardener” is the name of the Alex Kintner analogue)

You should read it if: You can’t find a Jaws torrent.

Mokepon ⭐

What is it: A dickhead teenager is forced on a Pokemon adventure, and learns a valuable lesson about friendship while being dragged into a criminal conspiracy. A Pokemon fanfic that’s somewhat darker than the source material (though not really “grimdark”)

The Good: Good action scenes, nice manga-style art. Notable improvement in art and storytelling over time. Atticus’ slow-burn character growth is satisfying.

The Bad: The early chapters are almost a completely different comic, and it takes a little while to find its groove.

You should read it if: You liked Pokemon Special

Monster Pulse ⭐

What is it: Kids’ internal organs become sentient external organs, and they have to keep it a secret from an evil orginization.

The Good: Cool twist on the surprisingly rare monster pet genre. Not afraid to upend the status quo

The Bad: No real obvious flaws, but if you don’t find the premise interesting, you probably won’t like it.

You should read it if: You were a fan of monster-pet stories like Digimon Tamers

The Monster Under The Bed

What is it: A teenager finds a demon girl under his bed, rom-com ensues

The Good: Cute anime-esque premise

The Bad: Gets progressively hornier to to point where I'm not sure if I should even leave it on this list. Egregious use of photos instead of drawing backgrounds, making outdoor scenes look awful

You should read it if: You like trashy Japanese animes

Narbonic ⭐

What is it: A shlubby loser gets a job working for a mad scientist. Mad sciencey things occur, and the comic experiences an incredible jump in quality in the back half

The Good: Short comic, comfy and easy to read. The best and most satisfying ending arc of any webcomic ever.

The Bad: Some “LOLRANDOM” humor, especially early on.

The Terrible: The first few comics are almost literally unreadable due to messy handwritten lettering and low quality scans.

You should read it if: You love seeing a story build to a proper conclusion, and you don’t mind a rough start.

Octopus Pie ⭐

What is it: Slice-of-life dramedy where twenty-somethings try to become adults and/or get laid while navigating New York life. Completed comic.

The Good: If you direct your attention above, you will see the incredible coloring. There are other comics that have better plots and even better characters, but Octopus Pie is uniquely good at hitting a mood. Occasionally does some infinite canvas stuff that’s neat.

The Bad: This is a comic about exploring ideas and kind of drifting around through life, and isn’t a big plot-focused comic with a lot of big dramatic reveals. Which I don’t think is bad, but it might not be your thing.

You should read it if: You liked stories about adults trying to figure out how to grow up, and like seeing characters age.

Out-of-Placers ⭐

What is it: A human man is turned into a female rat creature, and has to navigate a low-fantasy world while learning their incredibly stupid ways and trying to get himself back to normal.

The Good: Really good worldbuilding, with interesting, fleshed out, and unique fantasy races. There are licensed Dungeons and Dragons books with less cool ideas for a campaign in them.

The Bad: Can get kind of edgy in ways that don’t always work, and occasionally gets a bit gross. If the premise made you think it was a furry fetish comic, it’s not, but it keeps threatening to become one if you don’t whap it with a newspaper and say “No” very firmly every now and then.

You should read it if: Your favorite DnD race is kobolds.

Paranatural ⭐

What is it: Kids bust ghosts in a parody of shounen anime tropes

The Good: Good banter, creative panel layouts, and characters you want to root for.

The Bad: The story rapidly increases in scale, causing the pacing to slow down somewhat. The story later transitions to an illustrated prose format, which some people can't really get into.

You should read it if: You liked Bleach before it became Dragonball

Prequel -or- Making A Cat Cry: The Adventure ⭐

What is it: An Elder Scrolls fanfiction, in which an alcoholic catgirl heads to a new land to try to make a better life, and generally fails.

The Good: Inventive use of the web as a storytelling medium. Great character writing. Lovable protagonist. Excellent payoff to years or life kicking the protagonist in the face.

The Bad: Years of life kicking the protagonist in the face. Can thus be depressing, especially early on, sometimes to the point of being offensive (see Content Warnings)

The Terrible: Very slow and irratic update schedule

Content Warnings: Alcoholism, Depression, the protagonist gets blackout drunk and wakes up in bed next to strange men several times, which is played for comedy.

You should read it if: You like slow burn character development. You like stories where the protagonist has a hard time

Problem Sleuth

What is it: A detective tries to leave his office using user-submitted commands, and gets in a few tangents along the way. Mostly known now as “The thing Andrew Hussie did before Homestuck”, but it was a popular comic in its own right.

The Good: Much better art than most reader-driven comics, bizarre and clever, with a dramatic finish.

The Bad: Holy shit, you thought Homestuck meandered? Problem Sleuth will do nearly anything and everything readers asked him to do, and this is a veeeeeery convoluted comic that has thus aged somewhat poorly.

You should read it if: You thought Homestuck was best before the Trolls got involved.

Questionable Content

What is it: Humanity achieves a technological utopia in the background while hipsters in Massachusetts complain about their dating lives. Later begins focusing much more heavily on all the robots.

The Good: A rotating menagerie of quirky cute girls. Had a major trans character before it was cool.

The Bad: The comic kind of transitions from being about one thing to being about another thing several times, to the point where onetime protagonists show up less and less or even get dropped altogether in favor of the New Thing the comic is.

You should read it if: You want a comfy and diverse slice-of-life comic.

#undivine #Ava's Demon #Awkward Zombie #Camp Weedonwantcha #Cloudscratcher #Cornucopia #Dresden Codak #Drop Out #Dumbing of Age #Everything is Fine #Gunnerkrigg Court #Homestuck #Homestuck^2 #Kiwi Blitz #Latchkey Kingdom #Leasebound #Least I Could Do #Legend of the Hare #Nan Quest #Moby: Back From The Deep #Mokepon #Monster Pulse #The Monster Under the Bed #Narbonic #Octopus Pie #Out-Of-Placers #Paranatural #Prequel #Problem Sleuth #Questionable Content

[arealtrashact]

What is the appeal/what do you like about Saw? I enjoy horror as a genre and have seen people post about saw a lot on here and had the opportunity to watch it so I did. But. I'm kind of confused? what I enjoy about horror is (a lot of different things, some of which are:) the anticipation, the contrast of good, pleasant times and the deeply horrific things which then happen, a plot that is unpredictable even if it's clear it will only end badly, I enjoy not knowing how exactly it will be bad and then the film slowly revealing that to me. Saw did very few of these things. Maybe it's just not a film for me, (I haven't watched many slashers and I can imagine they might be similar and it's just a subgenre I don't understand/am destined not to like?) but even so I just cannot understand what people enjoy about it??? from the get go it's grim and horrific, which means that when things get worse, they never really feel that bad because you have no example of goodness in that universe to compare it to? The characters are. Pretty two dimensional and also not necessarily likeable. Idk I could go on but I don't want to sound like a dickhead who loves the sound of their own voice writing a really critical review of something I don't understand. I feel like with the fanbase it has on this website, I must be missing something. Please enlighten me!!! And if you can't explain it I would love any articles/analyses of the franchise that go some way to explain why people like it if you know of any. Sorry for littering your inbox with this mini essay lol but I watched it last week and I'm still just like. Disappointed and confused and you're the first person on my dash to post something related to it so lucky you, you get to be the receiver of this ask !!! Thank you in advance if you even read this far lol, I'd really appreciate if you could point me in the direction of some kind of explanation !!! No worries if not tho, have a good rest of your week 🌻🧡

I think you had it when you said, 'Maybe it's just not a film for me'. It really is as simple as that.

There isn't always a deeper meaning or some secret detail everyone else who does enjoy it is privy to. There is no magic answer that will enlighten you into the appeal that something holds for certain people.

That being said, you shouldn't feel confused or left out by being perturbed by something as polarizing as Saw lol.

I can't answer for everybody who likes this franchise because I'm sure everyone has different reasons but speaking solely for myself : I like these movies for all the reasons you listed that you don't.

These films are like chicken soup for my soul, and have been since I was about ten years old. They make me laugh, they provide me with catharsis, and ( contrary to your statement) I find the characters very charming. I could wax on about what these movies did for me at that tender age but I am not in the habit of analyzing why I love the things that I do ( I think I'd find some patterns I wouldn't want to acknowledge /coughs/ ). All I know is that when Hello Zepp starts playing at the end of every installment, my heart swells with uncomplicated joy.

#Trashtalk #Anonymous #The short answer to your question : Hoffman's stacked rack.

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 57 – Pale by Wildbow

I have been reading Pale as it released from the very beginning in 2020 until the end. As such I am clearly suffering from a severe and acute case of Stockholm Syndrome, and you shouldn’t trust a single thing I say. But to try and step back a bit – Pale is the best 4 million word serial I have ever read, and very nearly even good.

The story follows Avery, Lucy and Verona, precocious and for various reasons marginalized teenagers in a decaying Canadian ski town. They are recruited by a council of the various ghouls, ghosts and goblins who live in the shadows of the town to be its Official Witches and investigate the mysterious death of the Carmine Beast, the greater spirit who stood as judge over all contests of struggle and violence in the region (less in the hopes that find anything and more so that any nosy outsiders can be truthfully told it has already been handled). Being of a protagonist-ey bent, they rapidly exceed their new patrons’ expectations, especially the ones among them who had a hand in the murder. After that it’s basically just literally several million words of things escalating further and further out of anyone’s control.

Or, I kid, but it really is impossible to talk about Pale without forgrounding its length and medium, I think. This is a serial which ran continuously with at least one update a week for more than three years, and (to grab another story about child wizards to compare) is roughly four complete Harry Potter series’ in length. Beyond being an entirely superhuman accomplishment as far as writing productivity goes, this had unavoidable effects on the story as it was being told. It also makes it literally impossible to provide anything like a complete plot summary in a review short enough that anyone will read it. So just take my word that there’s a lot of it, and we’ll come back to the others length-related issues.

This is an urban fantasy book, and a kitchen sink one at that – it’s clearly one of the underlying principles of the setting that it should, insofar as possible, be able to fit every type of storybook monster and horror movie plot and twilight zone episode within it somewhere. Underlying and ordering it all is the axiom that (almost) nothing magical can lie. The world will only respond to your word if its actually worth something – contradicting or gainsaying yourself harms your karma and sets the universe against you, breaking a sworn oath is an open invitation to fates worse than death. The natural consequence of this is that every practitioner (wizard, basically) worth shit has been trained from birth to be an asshole genie and most of the really powerful Others (catch-all term for supernatural creatures) come by it naturally.

None of which is new – this is the second serial Wildbow has written in the setting – but they do combine to make a bunch of amateur detectives investigating a murder really, really fun. The heroines POVs also offers a great way to introduce the setting to the reader, or, at least, provides an excellent justification for in character exposition dumps – and to be clear, this is a series with lore. I consider this an absolute win, but if you don’t like elaborate asides about random monsters or marginal otherworlds that clearly exist only because the author thought they were cool, then this is not the series for you. (On the other hand, most of them are absolutely cool). The world is vast, and the story is full of asides and tangents about things that could easily sustain a novel in their own right.

The other way the exposition is provided is through occasional Extra Materials mini-chapters (quite regular during the beginning of the story, less so as it goes on), which are just excerpts of in-universe documentation – specifically things that the protagonists or occasionally another major character would have been reading. Everything from class notes to chatlogs to investigation summaries as written by one of the girls to local social media posts to a dozen other things. Surprisingly good graphic design on most of them too, which really helps sell them as in-universe artifacts and as ways to characterize the implied authors/readers. It’s very much to the serial’s detriment that these fade away as it goes on.

The series has three protagonists, and chapters alternate between each of their POVs and internal narration. It actually does an excellent job differentiating between Lucy, Avery and Verona and giving them their own distinct voices and making each compelling in their own right (not that I don’t have my favourite, but). While the book’s not perfect about it, on the whole they mostly feel like unusually bright and dedicated teenagers (and increasingly incredibly traumatized child soldiers with variably healthy coping mechanisms), rather than short and legally disabled adults.

As is fairly common with web serials, the normal chapters are intercut with interludes from the perspective of some more minor character. Across all Wildbow’s works, these are honestly where he really shines most, I think. They’re each essentially short stories introducing and providing the history and characterization of someone from their own point of view, in the process more often than not totally recontextualizing their role in the story so far, with how they advance the actual plot almost incidental half the time. If I wanted to sell someone on the setting with as little investment as possible, I would probably just link them the first interlude – the first 90% of the chapter is a really quite good standalone horror story about a totally normal kinda shitty kid getting drawn into and being consumed by an occult living ritual (with its own creepy song! And cannibalism!)

Wildbow is actually an incredibly gifted character writer - both as a web serial author (but on the whole that’s not really any great accomplishment) and just, generally. Despite having an absolutely comically sprawling cast (like, dozens, minimum. If you told me hundreds I’d believe you), he manages to give the vast, vast majority of ones that matter their own distinct aesthetics, voices, and even their own little character arcs and plotlines. Even as much as I complain about bloat and pacing, it never stops being a joy to just spend time in any of the three protagonists’ heads, and I was deeply invested in them achieving their dreams in a way I rarely if ever am for fictional characters.

Now, the complaining. Wildbow is, as I said, one of the best character writers I know working today. The same cannot be said for his skill writing action scenes – which is incredibly unfortunate, because there are so, so fucking many of them. Some serve a real narrative purpose or showcase some bit of characterization, but most could honestly be cut by 90% and you wouldn’t lose anything except wordcount – even the ones which should be there tend to drag on past their natural end because of the book’s love of making things as desperate and hardwon as possible. Which I wouldn’t necessarily mind but like, there are individual action set-pieces that are longer than some published novels. At a certain point exhaustion sets in. If I had to guess, I’d put this down to the fact that when you’re writing 10k words a week and don’t have any concrete ideas of where to go next with the plot worked out, just extending the action scene and throwing some new monsters or puzzles or reversals of fortune at the heroes can eat up a chapter and buy you some time – but just because it’s an understandable consequence of the serial format doesn’t mean I need to like it.

Perhaps reading far too much into it, but if I had to guess, I would say the story’s more structural issues stem from the same thing. Pale was originally planned as a (relatively) short and (relatively) light serial, but in the process of writing rapidly ballooned past all planning and expectation. Which like, as I said, I just enjoyed spending time in the various protagonists’ heads and seeing them develop, but at a certain point you can absolutely start to see the plot starting to outpace all planning and spinning off in multiple entirely new directions that were pretty clearly informed by whatever idea Wildbow was turning over in his head at the time. Sometimes this worked out very nicely – I still love Avery’s whole Thunder Bay/accidental love triangle arc. Sometimes it’s a bit mixed – Wonderkand is a very fun idea, but tonally and aesthetically is kind of a mismatch with 90% of the rest of the setting. Sometimes, well – did anyone like the extended Aurum/Dark Fall trial sequence? But even aside from individual arc quality, if you are someone who cares even slightly about things like ‘pacing’, ‘narrative discipline’, or ‘plot points/foreshadowing not going in weird directions or fading in the background because the author just forgot/kind of lost interest in them in the course or writing a novella weekly for three years’ then oh boy is this not the story for you.

A similar sort of thing happens, I think, with the story’s themes. Pale is from the beginning very explicitly concerned with ideas of punitive versus rehabilitative justice, an already slightly fraught use of the subjugation/binding of magical creatures as a metaphor for oppression and colonization, and just generally with the idea of building a better world in the hidden corners of the current one. The story, well, remains very interested with those subjects, but having any coherent viewpoint on them falls to the wayside compared to coming up with ways to advance the plot or dilemmas to throw at the protagonists or just vivid bits of imagery in the moment. This more or less generalizes – I kind of get the sense that Wildbow set out wanting to write something that goes against his narrative reflexes/habits, but as the story went on and the writing piled up they just kind of crept back in. Certainly for a story that take pains at first to emphasize how hellish and cruel long term binding and confinement are, the happy ending involves a lot of various cruel and torturous prisons that are portrayed as somewhere between necessary and just. The big final villain also more or less works on a character level, but thematically is basically the single worst choice of anyone the protagonists faced down across the entire story.

I’m accentuating the negative here, and part of that is just because I’m a miserable husk of a human, but it’s also just that Pale’s real problems tend to be structural, while its high points are much more particular and specific, and hard to sell without immense amounts of context – there are so many random side characters who get more compelling stories than the actual protagonists of some books I’ve read this year, and a half dozen scenes that are pretty permanently burned into my memory. My favourite dynamic involves a character whose only present for, like, 3% of the story max.

At one point the story was intended to end with Arc 13, followed by a hiatus and then a sequel. I still think this would have been the correct choice, even that ending would rip my fucking heart out and also possibly get Wildbow literal bombs mailed to his house. Still – if you can stand that sort of ending and also are the sort of person to read million-word web serials to begin with, that would be my recommendation. Get to that point, and then decide for yourself how invested you are in spending time in the heads of the protagonists and in the world. Or read Pact, which is like a fifth of the size and ostensibly set in the same setting – though leans so much further into horror than urban fantasy for tone that functionally there’s a lot of discrepancies.

All of which said, Verona Lucy and Avery are going to live in my head for the rest of my life and I make no apologies about this.

#book review #web serial #pale #parahumans #wildbow #sff #urban fantasy

[bronx-bomber87]

Hello my wonderful fandom :) Thank you for all your lovely comments on me being delayed. Not my usual M.O. but I definitely needed the extra time to process. I was GUTTED and absolutely wrecked. Poor D had to deal with my panic spiral for most of Wednesday. (love you lol) I'll be honest I'm still little shook up and sad. Kinda grateful for the 3 week break tbh between episodes. This was a gut punch I wasn't in the least expecting. Hoping we'll get a S7 announcement during this hiatus. *fingers crossed* Get it together ABC. This took me awhile to unpack emotionally so thank you all again for being so patient.

So I want to preface this post. There will be ZERO And I mean ZERO bashing of Tim in this review from me. Would appreciate that in comments as well. I love conversation you know I love comments. What I don't like is hate being spread. Also nothing on Eric either. I've also seen this which is utter madness. Don't touch our captain. Man loves this fandom so much. Deserves respect. If you came to this review for either of those things please promptly exit stage left. I mean that in the kindest way possible but I love Tim/Eric so it's a non starter with me.

I’ve never so deeply related with a character in all my life as I have with Tim Bradford. I’ll be dissecting this ep to best of my ability. I love both these characters so very much. Why I was knocked out for a couple days before could tackle this. I imagine my thoughts will change when I do my summer in depth one. When we have the rest of the season in pocket. I have to say this won't be mini at all. LOL So lets get rid of that concept right now ha I can't be mini with this ep. I am not brief so thanks for reading. Also hats off to Eric my god he was incredible in this episode. Melissa too killing me left, right and center you two. Let us get started.

6x06 Secret and Lies.

Poor Lucy looks like me when I’m stressed and drained af. Tamara asking how stressed she currently is? Lucy answering 19.....She looks like a 19 if not worse tbh. This is probably the most time they've spent apart since they got together. Basically living together at this point let's be honest. Other than 6x01 they haven't really spent time apart aside from that UC op in 5x21. *sigh*

Tamara asking if Tim is still ghosting her? Lucy trying so hard to keep it together with her answer. My heart. What a wreck she is without Tim. Do love that we get to see her pin-up board btw. Good shot of her room we don’t usually get. That cupcake poster I love it so much. Although now it makes me sad...

Lucy asking what's wrong? Tamara telling her she wants to move out with some friends from school. Crap. Her moving is the last thing she needs…. But it's good for her even though the idea makes me sad. End of an era. Lucy is right she needs to live with people her own age. Doesn’t make it hurt less though. This is a ROUGH season for Lucy my god. The hits keep coming for our girl and I wanna hug her. Shield her somehow....

Lucy touching near her tattoo when she reaches Angela. (Mini gut punch.) I do love her coming to Angela about this. If there is anyone who knows Tim like she does it's Angela. Does help she finds his behavior alarming too. I mean of course she does. You can see the immediate worry. The empathy she has for Lucy is there but she holds her cards close in her advice. Telling her to trust him even though it's literally killing her. Not the council Lucy needed to hear or was looking for.

Lucy wanted more action than 'Just wait and trust him.' She has been trusting him but she’s so insanely worried. Going out of her mind with anxiety for her person. It's exuding out of of her and she looks like she wants to cry…Ugh me too Lucy. I’m an empath and an anxious one at that. I would be going out of my mind too…. Angela looks worried as hell though. Even though she isn't conveying that to Lucy at this point. Breaking my heart as she takes off from their convo. Because if she doesn't she'll lose it right then and there.

God I love Angela Lopez. First off well done on tracking him down. She's just a bad ass. I mean it's one of the reason's Lucy reached out to her tbh. Just gets into his car, drinking his soda, calling him out right away. I love her reasoning saying she can live off Wesley’s trust fund. Lmao. Doesn’t matter as much if she get's fired. 'Wine o'clock.' for her. Gotta love the confidence. I truly hope we get more Tim/Angela scenes the rest of this season. I always adore their dynamic.

Tim is sold on her reasoning and starts to explain the current situation he's trapped in. Angela taking it all in and assessing everything as he explains. Once Tim has succinctly summed up his current predicament Angela's reply is the best. 'I’m in.' lmao I love this woman. ‘I got your back boo.’ That she does. In more ways than he even realizes at this point.

Gotta commend Angela calling him out for walking away from Lucy. Not only that but his job to arrest a guy hasn’t thought of in a decade…. Ain’t no one better than her to be there to call him out his crap right now. Not only that but to really dig deep. To know this is far more than what he's sharing. This is why Angela is an incredible detective rooting things out like this. Saying this is more than just protecting Lucy. Her intuition is out of this world.

I mean she's not wrong. Lucy would understand if it was just about the benefits. She would be proud really. Thing is it's about protecting himself too. Which really just scratches the surface of why he is doing this. Tim knows he's caught even if he shrugs it off. She has him dead to rights and he knows it. 'I’m your BFF. I know you.' Ha it’s true whether you like it or not Timothy…Just like Lucy she has your number.

Angela giving him crap with how they're following Ray. Worried he isn't being smart about this. This is so unlike him to be this sloppy and unfocused. She was right he was tailing too close… Ray catches on to their tail quickly. When he scanned the vehicle made me so nervous. Doing it while he's taunting Tim. He's so detail oriented blows my mind Tim let that get by him. This SL gave me such MASSIVE anxiety as I watched it. Oh my lord.

The minute they get back to Angela's place she calls him out once again. Asking why he thinks this is ALL his fault? Tim shrugs it off and she refuses to take that as his final answer. Of course Angela was right there is far more to this story. Tim finally opens up to her about what happened. He had been leading his squadron for some time. Looking to move up to Sergeant.

The catch was he couldn’t be promoted if there was rampant criminality in his unit. Ray clearly was in the way of him moving up. Tim figured he could keep it within his unit if they went after him.. Oh Tim…. It was an unsanctioned mission too. Thinking if he could accomplish this would be easy fast track to his promotion.

Kills me to know he was there during the air strike ugh… Details missing from the last episode. The Humvee saved him and Mark but not his other men… I can't imagine what Tim felt in that moment. The immense amount of guilt laid on his soul from here on out. I mean it makes sense why he never left patrol before Lucy. The last time he tried to advance his career this happened. My broken boy.

Eric CRUSHES this scene. I wanna cry. My poor Timothy. He was more focused more on his career than his oath...Got two of his men killed. My damn heart. He’s so ashamed of himself. The way he points at himself when he says 'leadership.' I knew his military past would be dark but holy crap. I wanted more of his backstory and they delivered that in spades. What a gut punch this had to be for him. No doubt his men were loyal af to him. Would've followed him anywhere and did.

He carries leading those men to their deaths because they followed his leadership. Oof. That is quite the weight to keep on your soul. Also gives us insight to why he shoulders everything. Even when he doesn't have to. Punishing himself for past transgressions such as this. I'm sure when we get to the other side of this season, I will have an even deeper respect for the writers going into his backstory like this. Giving us even more insight to this man.

This hurts so good to get this kind of info. I have no doubt that’s why he shut Lucy out. The shame he feels is overwhelming. I totally get it. Nothing scarier than someone knowing your darkest secrets. Not only that but worrying they’ll think less of you due to it. Tim already struggles with self loathing. Been a theme for him his entire arc on this series. Something I've touched on a lot. This is truly bringing that to light in the most painful way.

We see Ray scanned Tim's car in order to gain access to it. To check his GPS to see where he's been. How he's been tracking him. When he scrolls down to Lucy's address. Made my stomach sink. Legit felt sick to my stomach....

I do love Lucy coming home and having Tamara there. Saying she ordered pizza for them. This is exactly what she needs. Do you really have to go Tamara? I wonder if she'll delay leaving now after this ep. There is a knock at the door and of course it's not the pizza. It's Ray. Hair's on the back of my neck stood up from the moment he entered that apt.

I know Melissa stated in her interview she was nervous about this scene. That she came off awkward in her anger. You are incorrect madam. Holy hell Lucy is a BAMF. Telling him the only call she's gonna make is for the ambulance. Because when she's done with him he's going to need it to wheel him out. Holds her ground like the confident bad ass we've all loved seeing her become.

Lucy calling him shaking and demanding where he was. Ooh lord hell fire coming with her through that front door. I love Angela grabbing Tamara to another room. Like let's go mom and dad are about to have a big blow out. Let's give them some space...

Tim asking if she's ok? Truly concerned but Lucy isn't having ANY of it. 'Do I look ok?' Damn no she doesn't....Ripping into him saying how that creep could've showed up when she wasn't there. Lucy is not wrong....Oh my lord I’ve never seen her so damn mad. She is RAGING at him and rightfully so. Her home was violated, Tamara was put in danger and threatened. All because Tim was trying to protect her. phew.

Tim FINALLY concedes to telling her something. It only seems to enrage her more. She is literally vibrating with anger in this scene with him. The more he tells her the more it doesn't explain why he left her in the dark. Lucy begging him to read her in. I mean she has earned that my love. ..Telling him to stop protecting her. Gah Tim is a deep loyalist who would protect anyone he loves even if it's not the right thing. His reply is a reflection of that.

'I can't. I won't.' He's so driven to keep her safe. His instinct is to protect her but doesn't see he's hurting her in the process. I knew she was going to be pissed he let Angela in and not her. But Tim was right she has a lot less to lose. Which doesn't seem pertinent in this moment...I do love her placing her hands on his when she also replies. 'I can't. I won't.'

Mirroring his words from moments ago. Just like he will never stop protecting her. Lucy will never stop fighting for him or longing to help him. That man is her entire world. The most important person in her life. It makes perfect sense she would help with this. Career be damned. I mean she risked her career to get him a shot at Metro. Of course she would do the same thing in order to shoulder his burden with him.

Love her standing her ground in this moment. Like damnit I love you and you are going to let me in. Whether you like it or not I am here and I'm going to help. If this wasn't a reflection of the communication problems that still painfully exist between them I don't know what is. I mean she tried to be patient and trust him. But honestly he needed this kick in the ass to let her in. Which is a problem. Lucy needs to be the first person he goes to. It shouldn't have to come to this. *sigh*

Their OP goes off without a hitch. Except Ray saying he was going to be an air strike on Tim's life.... God I had no idea as I was watching that scene how true it would be. Tim gets his interview and lies to protect Angela and Lucy. While keeping his own job intact as well. Also welcome back to Jackson’s dad. Hello there Percy. This is not how I wanted to see him again.

But he is IA him returning was never gonna be a good thing tbh in a post Jackson world. Regardless it was nice to see him again. The scene is Grey's office is ROUGH. Never seen Wade so disappointed in Tim. It hurts to watch. Just like this entire gut punch of an episode. Tim is just standing there in utter shame of everything. Ashamed Wade is looking at him like this.

Kills me Grey has to inform Pine of what he did. It makes sense he has to but damn that sucks. The amount of respect Tim has for Wade is immense. To watch him tear Tim apart and just stand there like a puppy being scolded hurts my soul. Especially when he tries to fight Pine knowing. Just dismissing him without further comment or argument...

So I will say this and it's not at all fair to Lucy that I thought this I'm sure. But I felt like if there was gonna be a breakup it would be coming from her. Not Tim in this moment. That's the part of this moment that really knocked the wind out of me. She had every damn right to be the one too btw. Instead she is there waiting for him with open arms. Honestly I took a breath for the first time this entire episode when she welcomed him in.

Wrapping him up in her arms. Encasing him, rubbing his back, her fingers in his hair. Gently cradling him against her. I thought ok maybe we'll be alright. Since Lucy isn't nearly as angry as she was earlier. Maybe they can get through this together. Cause she loved on him regardless of what happened. The unconditional love she has for this man blows me away. I honestly thought with her loving on him maybe they'd make it out. That they’d work through it together.

Tim looks so very defeated. On the verge of an actual breakdown as he explains that he lied about everything. Saying it saved his job...protected Angela and her. It doesn't seem like enough of a win to him. He looks so very destroyed and this is just the beginning of his downward spiral.

Lucy is doing everything to be his rock in this moment. To assuage him of his guilt… Most vulnerable ever seen Tim *pre tears*…. Lucy telling him it was an impossible situation. She would've done the same thing. It’s so very clear she was willing to work through this. To build them back to where they were before he got that phone call. Everything Lucy was in this scene represented her unconditional love for him. Tim is just too destroyed at the moment to see it….Also for him to accept it. It's so hard to truly accept unconditional love if you've never had it before. To truly trust in it.

Lucy is watching him spiral out of control. The way he's talking about himself with such loathing. How she never would've been in a place where she put her self interest over her team like him. She is trying her damndest to right his wrong. But Tim is having none of it. It pains me to see it... Pains Lucy too. It's the way she grabs onto him while he continues his verbal self flogging that get's me.

Trying to ground him in this moment with her touch. Bring him back to her. Something that has worked so well in the past. Sadly not having the intended affect this time around. Tim is too damn gone at this point. He feels he’s betrayed everything he thought he was. THOUGHT he was. *heart clutch* Tim has such a deep moral compass. That's why this is rocking him so very much. Ugh my heart. I too have a crazy deep moral compass. I can't say I wouldn't be spiraling out like him as well.

This was his greatest sin brought to light. To Tim exposing him for the fraud he feels he is. Him saying he's been lying to himself for a long time is a reflection of this. That imposter syndrome coming out real strong here. Something he buried deep down came rushing to the forefront and he is imploding. Says as much above. He no longer feels worthy to be in her life now. I get this anytime I screw up with a friend or my sister. I have this deep sense of shame attached to it. Like I no longer deserve that friend or my sister cause I messed up or if a past sin comes up. That they'll no longer love me or will forever look at me differently cause of it.

It's not logical but it's deeply ingrained from my mom shaming me for doing anything wrong growing up. As it is for Tim. His father literally beat the hell out of him for ever being out of line. He has suffered emotional and physical abuse. Unless confronted and treated comes out like this. Demons making their way to the surface. I was bawling by the time he said 'I'm sorry.' He’s never seen himself worthy of Lucy’s love that much has always been evident. But to see it this raw and visceral ripped my heart out. It’s on the ground where they're both standing.

I think this is something that has been brewing in the background for Tim for a long time. Now that I've had time away to decompress and think. I'm actually very excited they're tackling this. It's clear Tim is not in a place where he thinks he deserves her anymore. Low key never has been. He acts before he thinks. Eric had a great quote from his interview about Tim "He is impulsive and he reacts instead of thinking things through, and it can come out a bit too strong.” That is this decision in a nutshell. He feels he is a burden therefore he is removing himself without thinking it through. The regret that is going to come with this is going to be immense for him.

'You deserve so much better.' Better than me basically. He feels immense shame and that shame is launching him away from her. You know I learned something in therapy about this. About not being perfect and feeling like I'm too much. i.e. a burden. My therapist told me and it made me cry. 'You are worthy of the space you take up in people's lives. They want you there.' Tim does not think he is worthy of the space he is taking up in Lucy's life now. All his sins on the table laid out for her to see. He can't handle it. That much is very clear here. I will say I haven’t let a ship hurt me like this in a long time.

This absolutely crushed me. I couldn't even fathom assembling my thoughts. Cut me very deep. Been with this ship since day one. Also what a crushing blow this is for Lucy. Our poor girl. I mean she gave everything to this relationship. I mean EVERYTHING. She was all in from the moment Tim said ‘Unless it is.’ This was her first real relationship. First real leap into being serious. Thinking about marriage and kids. She gave her all to Tim my god. Her career took a hit for him and she never complained. Knew he was worth it (he still is btw) Fought every step of the way for him. For them.

When he was pulling back above it was an absolute panic for her. She could see him slipping through her fingers. Idk what broke my heart more Tim thinking he’s not worthy of her any longer or her begging him not to do this. She literally can't fathom how he can let go of her like this. Thought she was his person. Tim feels he’s gone back to who he was pre-Lucy and that scares him. He feels undeserving of the love she has to give him. Lucy knows everything and in his mind he can’t imagine her still loving him.

Lucy was as we all were in this scene. In disbelief... Even though Tim put her though absolute hell she was still there to comfort and support him. Because to her he is worth it even in the hard times. We all know Tim isn’t the best with his emotions. In his trauma damaged brain he thinks he’s doing the right thing here. That he’s radioactive, she deserves better than being around him and his reckless behavior.

The kiss on her head. Lucy trying to physically push away his rejection. Stomping all over my damn heart...However this ends up playing out Tim is going to have to address his emotional instability. How he charges forward and doesn’t think things through. Ruled by his emotions in the worst way. He’s impulsive and he’s gonna have to fight to get her back when he’s in a better mindset. Her trust has been obliterated by this. She fought and clawed for them and this was her reward. He’s gonna have to do some serious healing to get back to her. Lucy has loved him the best she can but he needs to put in some work now. We see next ep he's meeting with Aaron's therapist. Don't love that but I’ve wanted Tim to go to therapy for years. He needs this. Therapy doesn’t work unless you put the effort in though.

That will be a challenge for him. When I get out of the purview of this hurt I’m feeling...I’m actually going to be really impressed and happy they had Tim go through this. Do I think this is the end of them? No I think this is some serious growing pains. It was issues that have been percolating since Lucy did that 5 player trade. Hell probably back in 5x12 when Tim sacrificed himself without telling her so they could stay together. I still think that was romantic because of it's intended nature. BUT was the beginning of the communication problems. They’ve grown so very much in that regard. We’ve seen it but there is still work to be done on that front. It just came to a very gutting painful head.

I still have faith in the writers. I still have faith they’ll be ok. It might not be right away and I'm already feeling impatient tbh. But this is some serious realism being applied to them. It wasn't some random BS angst. Honestly we’re lucky our ship gets the most attention, the best SL’s and two people who LOVE these characters. They absolutely adore them and this ship. If you haven’t read Melissa and Eric’s interviews for this episode I highly recommend. This sucks right now. No two ways about it. But we will survive this storm. They’ll come out stronger than ever. Truly believe that. But for now let's rally around each other and get through this together. There will be brighter days ahead just doesn't feel like it right now. We got this.

~~~

Side notes non Chenford.

Do love Aaron working with Harper all if of all I cared about other than their SL in this one. Nolan's I fast forwarded which I normally don't do but I had no patience for his BS in this ep lol My anxiety was rampant in this ep and had no space for him.

Also RIP Metro Tim for the 6x07 promo. This hurts to see not just cause I enjoyed him in that outfit lol But to see his career take a nosedive like this. I wanted more Tim back story. Didn’t think would hurt like this though....Feel free to comment I love you all for any interaction I get with these. <3

#Caitlin mini reviews #chenford #s6 #the rookie 6x06 #6x06 Secret and Lies #otp: unless it is #otp: doing my job #the rookie #tim x lucy #tim bradford #lucy chen #lucy x tim #eric winter #melissa o'neil #tim bradford x lucy chen

[mortalityplays]

You mentioned on your addition to that post on what happened to webcomics that "there was a time when they were an outlet - something you did after your shift at the bar, because it came with broad possibilities and a vibrant social scene. Now they are a second job" and I was wondering, what do you think was the reason for that specific shift? Colin Spacetwinks attributes it to the '08 crash & accompanying broader economic downturn, would you say that was a major part?

I tihnk it's fair to say that contributed, but on the other hand (speaking for myself) the '08 recession was part of the reason I first went into freelancing as a comic artist and illustrator when I graduated. There were no other jobs, so there was nothing to lose in using this other skill to fill the gaps. I know I wasn't the only person who took this route at the time - and that was in part possible because webcomics were still typically independent projects steered by creators who developed their own peer networks and communities both on and offline.

I was able to sell my work at conventions and make a small profit, even as an unknown name, because the playing field was relatively even once you put everyone in the same hall with a folding table. The pressure to perform 'professionalism' was much, much lower. You were not expected to have a patreon, an active kickstarter, a ko-fi, a polished logo, six different social media presences etc. Some people had some of those things, but it didn't imply their work was any better or more established than the person beside them who didn't.

And there was still kind of a cultural cachet in the idea of 'discovering' the work of a previously unknown indie artist - picking up an incredible mini from someone with a rinkydink homemade table display and being the one who introduced their work to a particular web forum or the first person to review it on your blog etc. There really are no significant outlets for that kind of exploration any more. It feels like the only people motivated to hunt for new talent like that today are the middlemen hungry to profit from it.

This is a very rambling answer, but I guess the thrust of it is that there was a cultural change here that went hand in hand with a multitude of economic and material shifts. I maintain that the recession only presented an opportunity for predatory business models to spring up and target artists. In large part we're the ones who let them get away with it.

[dingodoodles]

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#dungeons and dragons #dnd #fools gold dnd #heroforge #dnd 5e #miniatures

[wingzie]

Hi.

Your experience as a Jikookers is the same as the experience of Taekookers. Extreme shippers fighting and having meltdowns on the TL make a lot of people equate the unit name with these behaviors.

Sadly the first thought that came to my mind when Jimin mentioned JK is that tkk would make a scene about it. Instead of just feeling relief they are doing well, or just comfort we're getting news, I felt dread. And the worst is I was right.

I'm really struggling with the state of the fandom now, especially twitter fandom. People say you just have to curate your online experience and most sane armys are just taking a break from SNS and everything will get better once the guys start coming back from MS. I'm not this optimistic.

I've been thinking finding fellow ARMY irl could be better. But there's still a good chance to meet someone you would block straight away online.

I'm not a very social person. I used to come online to find people remisniscing, celebrating, sharing.. There's always been hating but now it feels like it's only hating (and comparing numbers). There was a clear shift from COVID on. It's not just solo endeavors and MS. You said it, how the way to handle things has changed.

I don't know how to fend off all the negativity any more than I know how to casually meet ARMY offline. I dream of an ARMY community manager, of a campaign about mental heal, abusive relationships (how many think they know better than the members what's good for them and think they are actually showing love and support when they are just being abusive), how to make the parasocial relationship a positive thing, etc.... A lot of these people who make ARMY spaces unbreathable actually need help.

Hi Anon! I'm sorry you feel this way. I feel like some Army experienced feelings of anger or betrayal since the Festa Dinner, which has made them unfairly lash out on the members. Some cannot cope that we lost an aspect of control, but this has always been the members decision and we have to accept that with respect. As I said in my other post, the heart of Army is massively the same. Just this morning I saw a Tweet about the Purple Ocean from Muster and it reminded me of the Flashlight project during PTD. There will ALWAYS be discourse online. That is the reason for it's existence. I am in other fandoms and they all suffer from the same issues since Covid and Elon. However, for every "bad" person or post, there are plenty of good ones out there. If you look for then. I mentioned to someone yesterday that it's like when people always leave awful reviews for a bad meal, but very rarely mention when they have a good meal. That's why I always try to find a balance. Both Jimin and Namjoon have told us over the years to not engage with negativity and I have always taken those words to heart. Things in online spaces have changed, but I guess I am more of a fighter and optimist. For each negative post I see, I spend more time posting/repositing posts that spread positivity or praise. I see no point in boosting some random February 2024 account sprewing hate. We have to be responsbile or our own spaces and I DO think things will improve once Jin returns. There's still that shared joy and excitement whenever a member posts or content comes out. It's just that the negative is less contained than it used to be. As for events offline. My first event was for a local screening of one of the concerts. I then attended a few events for members Birthday's. With the HYYH anniversay coming up, maybe you could look into seeing if there's any events for it? It's also Sope's Birthday soon and I plan to go to events for each of their Birthday's, so that could also be an option. However, if you dont' feel comfortable going in person, then that is perfectly acceptable. I'm sure there will be no judgement! We all have our own ways. For example, I always buy a mini cake for each members' Birthday haha. Though I had some negative experiences offline, there have been some really good ones. That's just how things are and then you can take the steps to protect yourself afterwards. I'm actually going to another event with the same group I mentioned before. If it doesn't go well, then I will just leave. If things have improved, then I will stay and enjoy myself. I understand it's not easy though, especially when we have certain expectations. Please do look after yourself though and feel free to DM me if you wish to discuss further. Much Love Wingzie/Becca

[taybatwo2]

Another Magic Mixies Pixling Review!!

This time of Marena and how she compare to similar themed dolls.

So many fins and shades of blues!

Here is a close up of Marena herself. She’s really cute (I have been loving the Pixling dolls). She’s similar to the other dolls in the line, with a ball joint in the head, shoulders, hips and elbow joints, a (very nice) fabric skirt, and a molded on top.

She’s supposed to be a mermaid Pixling, but she gives me more of a water nymph vibe…..yup, that’s just going to be my head canon.

A close up of her face up. Her screening is lightly pixelated, but it’s not distracting like what Mattel uses on their Fashionistas. I love the little scale pattern around her eyes and wish that’s what would have been printed on G3 Lagoona’s forehead. Her ears look to be added on as separate pieces and have a tiny bit of glitter in them.

While her shirt is molded on, it is a very cute mold and “ties” around the back. The extra molded detail, paint, and unique design adds to her cuteness (they could have just had the same top design for all the dolls, but instead they have made separate molds for all the characters….so far). Her skirt is silky (but not the paper-like silk that Disney/Jakks Pacific/Mattel uses), hemmed, with a tule around the bottom (along with the cut, it is is reminiscent of a mermaid tail).

Even the shoes have cute little pear, heart and scale patterns (matching her skirt). More under the cut:

Marena was swarmed by some adorable, big haired aquatic monsters. Marena meet the Mermalades! I always like to compare the Pixlings with Moose’s Zelfs. Their ancestor of sorts.

Marena likes the look of these sea buddies.

Mermalade is a darker blue, and the newer Mermalades actually has more fins than Marena does (I wish she did have some webbing in between her fingers and maybe some fins off of her forearms). Interesting to note, that the fins are more curved than the pointy fins Marena has.

She actually has a much closer color pallet to Sealia or Oceana. But I do not own these little guys…yet.

Huh, something scared them off….I wonder what it-

Well that is startling, but not an usual sight around my house. “Is this how you treat your dolls?!?”

No no no, this Taylee Turtle Enchantimal was going to be a Monster High custom…and that’s as far as I got…

“I can’t see anything!! Hello??”

Don’t worry Taylee, you’re doing great.

Enchantimals are about the same height as Pixlings, but have smaller proportions. They also have opposite joints (well, at least Taylee has knee joints, I don’t believe most Enchantimals have these). You can also see how basic the molded (granted I acetoned some of it away) and fabric pieces are compared to Marena. I mean it’s not really a fair comparison because I think of Marena as more of an aquatic mammal, fish, or amphibian and Taylee is more of a:

Here are Dolce Dolphin and Sedda Seahorse.

Yeaaaaah, the skirts might look a bit more inspired, but none of them have fins sculpted to their legs or arms, and their shirts are still kinda boring. Also wanted to compare her to this unreleased mermaid Novi Star, just because her decorations around her eyes and her large ear fins reminded me of them….and actually the large head, small torso and hands are kinda reminiscent or Marena too, huh….

Okay, Taylee wandered off when I was looking at the other Enchantimals and Nobvi Star concept, soooo, let’s compare Marena with Ebbie Blue, the youngest of G2’s Blue family.

“She’s like a mini me!” She is both less and more detailed than you Marena (I LOVE the scales on the arms and under her pigtails, her little fins on her arms, and how the scales merge into her tail, but she can’t tip her head up and can move her arms out).

Also, she’s got widdle, round fingers that look like they have not finished growing.

Let’s compare you to someone a bit older: Kelpie Blue from G2!

“Look at her sharp toe-nails, and those shoulder spikes! I think she’s more sea monster than nymph.” “Is someone saying something down there? I can’t move my head down to see.”

Well….that’s a little better. Kelpie has really cute and unique scales, fins, and shortened webbing in between her fingers, but her articulation is REALLY poor (she can’t move her head up/down, or move her arms/legs out).

Her ears were also added on later, like Marena’s.

“I wonder if all dolls get stiffer when they grow up?”

“I dunno, I have a torso joint that es magnífica.”

“Are you a sea monster too??”

“Sí! But don’t worry I won’t eat you up, you’re too cute like my Señor Squishy.” “Whoa!!”

“Let me introduce you to more Lagoonas.”

After chasing the speedy G2 around, she finally got to look at her tiny little ear fins while playing with her hair, and Freshwater Lagoona and Saltwater Lagoona both couldn’t get over how cute she was.

“Look at the lil’ kindy!”

“A lil’ sea grub!!”

She’s actually closest (design wise) to both G1 Lagoona’s. A lack of scales, she’s in-between both their colors of blue and she has the added pink accents too.

Side tangent about Lagoona:

Thought I should add a quick summery of my thoughts on my different generation Lagoonas. G1 Lagoona:

pros: All the different material used in her clothing, her face-up, her personality, her addition of a diary, her fully webbed hands (with different colored webbing and see through fins). cons: she has an ill-fitting swimsuit, her fins keep falling off, her thin joints make her pretty delicate, glue head (this one is treated with La’s Totally Awesome cleaner, but I still need to treat Freshwater Lagoona, and de-yellow her head), and the elastic hip joints make her floppy. Her character being ALL about Gil in the series (I really don’t hate his character and I LOVE his G1 design, I just wish there were more to her stories than just him).

G2 Lagoona (I’m still looking for the OG G2 Lagoona, so have the Beast Pet one here):

pros: Her softened face is kinda cute, her sculpted scales around her arm and leg fins, her stronger joints, her fins stay in SO MUCH BETTER. cons: I remember her being a lot more hyper and speedy than G1 and it’s an odd choice to me, her eyes were changed from green to blue, her webbing decreased in size and is no longer another color (and many of her dolls didn’t have this much articulation).

G3 Lagoona (I originally gave her braids to make her have kinky hair, but the braids are kinda growing on me).

pros: torso joint on most of her dolls, see through legs, her fins stay on pretty well, larger ear fins, a really fun personality on the show, her joints are stronger/her doll feels sturdier, I like many of her shoes and themes (jellyfish/tentacles/pearls).

cons: I didn’t like her first couple of releases, her pink (while it reminds me of an axolotl) is a bit too sunburnt looking for me…? Maybe a paler or darker pink. I would have liked it if they would have painted her ears/and had a blue to pink fade on her arms as well…also her dots on her forehead should have either been sculpted scales or drawn scales like Marena. Biggest disappointment: should have hand webbing, a diary, and accessories that have to do with her love of telenovelas!!! I’m still getting used to her being really different than G1 Lagoona and would have really liked it had she been her cousin from the Amazon (because I want to see them interact with each other SO BAD).

Anyways, Tangent over:

My last take aways is: MARENA HAS THE BEST HAIR FIBER OUT OF ALL OF THEM!!

okay, now the review is over.

#monster high #monster high doll #aleta’s toys #doll collecting #monster high dolls #dollbr #doll collector #toy collecting #doll review #magic mixies #magic mixies pixlings #Marena #lagoona

[someone-who-loves-kpop-saranghae]

Stress Reliever

Ler: Seonghwa

Lee: Reader

Warnings: fluff, stress, reader anxious, mentions of depressions

Genre: This fiction is about tickling, so if you don't feel like reading it then don't do it.

A/n: Sorry this isn't about the tickletober but I wanted to write it because I often take my feelings into my stories..

🖤⭐🖤⭐🖤⭐🖤⭐🖤⭐🖤⭐🖤⭐🖤⭐🖤

It has been a long week, even though it was only wednesday. The teachers this year love complicated homeworks and some just never explained their themes.

So the whole week you had that one teacher who stressed you so damnit much. She was (of course!) your maths teacher.

She was an old lady who teached the same themes and same classes for like 40 years now. Even parents of your friends had been teached in maths by her.

The problem was: she was ... special.

Very... special. For example, she had her own way to explain, and literally nobody (only the three maths geniouses in your class) understood it.

And when someone asked a question, she just explained another theme! She literally never explained the theme/question it self, she just said how beautiful your stuff was. Or how well drawn this exercise was. Or that you need to do this and this when you want to do this. But she never explained what you wanted her to explain. Ne.Ver.

The second problem was, that she introduced a new, complicated theme and you didn't understand it. Nothing you did made you understand it. And every day, she introduced new mini-themes to that theme.

Every. Goddamn. Day.

You did only get like 4/12. And that was not good. But you knew that yourself! You were so stressed because you were going to write an exam about that theme soon but you just didn't understand. So you were stressed. Very stressed.

Not only because of maths, but because you also were sick the last two days and had to review and copy all the stuff from your friends. You had already copied some stuff and done some homework, but not all.

So today you had school until 15:30 and came home at 16:40. Tomorrow was a vocabulary test in french.

You had to copy three worksheets in history because you'd need them the next day. Three work sheets. Full of text.

Besides that, there were the english homework: reading a 4 pages short story and analyzing it. Then maths -of course- because you had maths every singe day.

So you came home at 16:40, Seonghwa waiting for you. "Hey my friend, how was your day?" he asked as you came in.

You just waved and went busy into your room.

"Okay" you said, to not make him think about you. But no chance with Seonghwa.

He followed you -of course- and stood in the door, watching you worried.

"Hey... are you okay?" he asked. You just shook your head.

"Hey" he whispered. "I'm here for you" and came closer.

You took some deep breaths to hold back your tears and went in the kitchen to get some food because you were hungry.

Then you sat down in the kitchen at a table and started eating. He came to you and sat down next to you.

"Wanna talk?" he asked softly.

You just shook your head again, because if you talked, you would start crying. As you stopped eating and stood up, took your dishes into the cleaner and wanted to walk to your room again, he grabbed your arm as you were walking up next to him.

He pulled you closer and then in his lap. "You know I'm here for you, right? You can talk to me. I love you" he whispered.

A first tear now rolled down your cheek. "I know"

He wiped away the tear. "Sure you don't wanna talk?" he asked again.

"I'm just so ... stressed. I have so many homeworks and studies left and it's already 5pm! I gotta go shower today, I gotta study french vocabs, I gotta do maths, english history,... It's so much! I suffer from school. I mean, I'm only (your age) years old! I can't handle this all by myself. I don't understand maths, history is too much, i have problems remembering some vocabs in french and english is so much! I gotta study until midnight if i wanna do this all!" you whispered, a second tear rolling down your cheek.

"It's okay" he whispered back. "I'm here for you. I can help you. We can do this. I promise, I won't let you suffer. At least not alone. I'll always be here for you. I love you. Thank you for coming into my life."

You nodded lightly and hugged him. "Thank you Hwa".

"It's okay. I'm here for you. Now lemme see that smile again, cutie" he said and pinched your cheek softly.

You weren't able to react much, just lightly smile.

"Pleaseee? Pretty pleasee?" he said teasingly.

You giggled lightly because his behavior was so childish.

"Aww your giggles are so cute! And I know how to make you even cuter~" he said and smirked.

He let his hands slide under your hoodie and lightly clawed over your tummy. What indeed made you giggle.

But you didn't even care, you actually enjoyed it this time because you were so stressed and sad these days, you could really need a little cheer up.

And he felt that. That you needed it. So he went for your sides, ribs and back too, he scribbled and clawed all over them while you giggled your heart out.

As you cried tears from giggling and laughing so much, he stopped and hugged you.

You hugged him back and whispered a "thank you" into his ear.

He smiled softly. "You're welcome, sweetie" he said.

"And now we're gonna kick those stupid homeworks in their butts and beat them up, right?" he motivated you.

You laughed a bit. "Yeah, sure" you replied.

"And I'll help you <3" he whispered and tickled you under your chin quickly, before you both went to do your homework s and learn your vocabs.

In the end, you only needed 2 1/2 hours to complete it all with Seonghwa's help.

+End+

A/n: Sorry this fic is so depressing, but I tried my best. I just can't write these days, I know it. Just how I feel rn. Not interesting, I know .. but ..something. Also the tword scene isn't very long, so sorry for those who expected more. I understand you.

#kpop tickle #ateez #ateez tickle #ateez seonghwa #seonghwa tickle #ateez fluff #seonghwa fluff #seonghwa x reader #ateez x reader #ateez angst #seonghwa angst #stress #stressrelief #ateez stress reliever #i'm sorry guys

[ruhorih4ra]

Part.4!! It ain't much but it's honest work hahaha ♡♡♡♡

Part. 1 2 3

Get out of my way 🌈

How you got out of there without Barbatos extinguishing your life with his own hands is beyond your comprehension. “Maybe he’s waiting for the right time.” “I wouldn’t disregard it.” The harsh words you said earlier kept coming back to your head and the thought of facing yet another quarrel scared you to no end.

What if Solomon is busy too? What if you came as an obligation for him too? “I’ll look for Solomon later.”

You went to the library, ignoring the curious glances that were thrown at you, although you had distanced yourself from the brothers, it wasn't a normal occurrence for you to be alone in the RAD corridors. Classes had already started but right now your problem seemed more urgent.

The hours passed and the pile of books were on the rise. The table you were at looked like a book fort, and under all those old papers and hard covers you could be found, feeling sorry for yourself. By the time classes ended, you had already read at least 30 books. Your head was throbbing for the effort, some of those books were imposible to translate even with spells.

There was nothing about these fucking annoying mini Little D.’s “You’re so ungrateful, Mc. We’re helping you!” You sighed for the thousandth time that day. You took one of the books he had brought you, reading aloud. “30 easy ways to teach a demon how to sing happy birthday to you.” The Little D. of envy nodded his head excitedly.

“Oh, here’s another one: Are demons born evil or they turn evil? A look into demonic DNA. You’re right! Thank you, you little piece of-”

“Are you looking for something specific?” You followed the voice that had startled the three of you. Satan was in front of you with a cup of coffee and a mischievous smile. You ignored his offer.

“Not really, no.” You stood up from your chair and stretched your back. It was time to call it a day. “Were you talking to yourself?” “You’re imagining things, I'll take my leave now.” “Why are you reading this?” Satan had in his hand a book with a very particular title "How to get ride of annoying demons." You laughed bitterly, you'd placed high expectations on that book but it turned out to be a mockery of human superstitions.

“I thought you would know it from the title.” Satan raised an eyebrow, it was safe to assume he wasn't delighted with your attitude. “Who's bothering you?” “Sadly, I live with them.” That was the last straw. He stood in front of you with a scowl.

“Stop. You were the one who told me to voice my worries. Please, voice your worries.” You sighed, tiredness getting the best of you. “I'm exhausted, Satan. I want to sleep, okay?” “Once you tell me what's wrong, sure.”

“Move. Now.” You were getting more and more impatient, but he wore a perfect mask of calm. “No. I'm worried. What happened yesterday? Are you injured?” He examined your face, looking for any wounds. “You’ve become an incredible sorcerer.”

You weren’t expecting that compliment. “Of course he would say that! He needs to be on your good side!” You knew that listening to the Little D.’s was stupid and a bad idea, but the words had some truth in them.

“Oh! So now everyone’s worried! Thank you so much for noticing me again, I was getting dusty.” You snorted and tried to leave but Satan took your arm and forced you to look at him.

The change in his features told you that he had figured something out, something entirely wrong. “Is this why you’re so angry? Are you… jealous?” You rolled your eyes, Satan didn’t budge.

“Let me go already.” He smiled, probably dismissing the whole thing. “That's stupid, MC. You know I would never...” “When was the last time you invited me out? When was the last time you asked me to read with you?” “Well that’s easy to answer. You brought me an encyclopedia of human world cats.” “That was a month ago!” “That is not true.” He did a mental review, finding hard to believe that he would be so busy as not to seek your company. But he did, and the guilt started to build inside of him.

You held his gaze until he looked away. “That's what I thought.” His grip softened until it was as weak as a caress. “I'm sorry. Please, forgive me. I don’t know how…” He looked ready to write an entire book full of apologies and that just angered you more.

You didn’t know if there were more Little D.’s but you refused to meet another, even though the rage inside you was getting harder to contain. Suddenly, a loud thump was heard and both you and Satan looked at each other before running towards the source.

Sc was massaging her head with a pained expression, a couple of books were lying on the floor. “Sc, are you okay?!” Satan arrived to her side in a matter of seconds. She had a small scratch on her forehead. “What happened? Are you okay?” You asked, something felt incredible fishy. “I was trying to take a book but I just couldn’t. It felt like a barrier or something.” You looked up to see a tiny demon with glowing blue eyes sticking his tongue out at Sc. “What book?” “Mc?” Satan seemed confused as to why you were so concerned about a book. “Maybe it’s cursed!” You started looking for it when something caught your attention, there on the floor was a white book with a very interesting cover.

You squatted down to examine it. The title read “They were little.” It looked like a children's story. But what really caught your attention was the picture in it. Seven Little D.'s surrounding a scared man. Great, your main source of information is a children’s book. Still, something is better than nothing. “God bless you, Sc.”

You quickly put it inside your bag without anyone noticing it. “I hope you're fine, Sc. I leave it up to you, Satan.” “Mc! Wait!” you dodged Satan's hand and rushed out the library. It’s just how they say, time is gold.

Part 5 ಥ⁠‿⁠ಥ

Rushed? Greatly. I'm sorry? No.

Taglist: @yuumaofc @kodasstar @sc4ry4l3x.

Thanks for reading! (⁠ ⁠˘⁠ ⁠³⁠˘⁠)💖

#obey me #obey me fanfic #obey me mc #obey me fandom #obey me gn!reader #obey me satan #obey me angst #Obey me Little D.'s