Getting Back to Gotham

So I haven’t reviewed a comic or trade paperback in a long time, I don’t mean days or weeks.....or even months....but like years.  So I decided that maybe, just maybe I should start again and what better way to start than seeing what our good friend Jack Burton has been up to since he helped vanquish the evil Lo Pan.  Volume 1 covers issues 1-4 from the Boom comics series that started back in I believe 2014 and covers The Hell of the Midnight Road and The Ghosts of Storms.  Before I start, let me just say if you’re reading this and you have never seen Big Trouble in Little China....well.....stop reading, log into Netflix and watch it.  No really for a typical 80′s action flick its great, did I mention it was a John Carpenter film?  Did I mention that he is also involved in the comic?  Yeah, how awesome is that?

Okay so you’re back, I assume you have just watched the film.  That’s good, because I’m sure right now you are noticing how much like the movie the comic looks.  The comic’s artwork matches the movie beautifully.  First off the rendition of Burton is excellent.  in fact all the characters pretty much look how they should.  I mean Brian Churilla does a fantastic job of making Carpenters vision come to life once more and I’m pretty damned happy about that.  For me it felt like I was watching a sequel (although my understanding is that there is a sequel or reboot on the way).

Next up is the writing, written by Carpenter and Eric Powell, best known for The Goon, the comic feels just like the movie, Burton is just as snarky and quick with the comments as he was in the movie, I could honestly “hear” Russel as I read it.  The dialog and the story was exactly what I would’ve expected.

Picking up immediately after the movie, as Jack is giving his speech over the CB radio he soon finds that he has company, a demon that once belonged to Lo Pan has been hitching a ride.  He stops and confronts the Demon, only to find the Demon friendly.  Jack of course doesn’t want a demon tagging along so he decides to head back to Chinatown and leave him with Wang.

When they arrive Wang is about to get married, Jack talks to Egg who tells him that the Demon is his now, since he was life bonded (I think thats what they called it) to Lo Pan, when Lo Pan was defeated he then became permanently bonded to Jack, since he took down Lo Pan.  Jack and Pete watch the ceremony which then gets invaded by a new enemy, a sorcerer named Qiang Wu who is now running the Wing Kong.  They want revenge for Lo Pan and we find later on that Qiang Wu has other plans in mind as well.  They kidnap Wang and tell Jack that he must collect the three jars that hold his brothers, the three storm spirits that were the body guards for Lo Pan.

Jack agrees to head down the midnight road to the home of the seven headed widow.   That’s where my synopsis will leave off.  Needless to say that if you liked the movie then you will love this series, I need to pick up volume 2 and see where the story heads, but so far I am loving it and I highly recommend it!

find it at your comic book store of choice or at www.boom-studios.com

So, I’m not really sure when Mario and RJ got the idea for Evolusion, but I’m pretty sure Mario had been thinking about it for years, maybe since Highschool.  About a year after I met him the process began and he gave me the three character cards in the photo.  So I thought I would share the Evolution of Evolusion.  At some point we’ll put a much more detailed and longer post about Evolusion, but for now here are some photos. The cards I think are from 4 years ago, the Evolusion #1 on the left is from I believe last year and to it’s right, is issue 2, which has just been released.  The card labeled Ride the Lightning is the same character (I think) on the second issue so you can see how the character has changed from concept to publishing.

http://www.indyplanet.us/brands/1-more-round-entertainment/

oh and as a side note, Mario also wrote a pretty good book on his weight loss journey