It’s difficult to say you enjoyed Garth Ennis’ Crossed series for Avatar Press, the book was a masterpiece in exposing the extremities of the human condition but the experiences Ennis chose to subject the reader to leave a bitter and possibly rat infested taste in the mouth. Crossed is a survival story in the zombie vein but has more in common with George Romero’s other recently adapted property; The Crazies. The world has been ravaged by a disease which causes the infected to act out the most base and horrific acts of violence and depravity upon their families, themselves and unfortunate enough to wander by. There aren’t many comic books where someone will get raped by a gimp whilst being repeatedly beaten with a severed horse cock.

Read more »

Not too long ago Sidekick favourite Iz McAuliffe invited me to join her as a Rackette on her and Stacey Frost's awesome podcast; Comic Racks. Stacey was unable to make it so basically I got promoted from guest to guest host...and there was booze...a lot of booze...big mistake. It's like a comic book podcast super-team-up on acid. That's my description of Comic Racks episode #55 and I'm sticking to it. However, if you'd prefer a more accurate and eloquent description you need look no further than just below. I've not actually listened to it myself yet so please let me know what you think

Download Here or listen to it through our player on this site.

Late, long and with only one Rack – Iz is joined by a new Rackette - Sidekickcast’s Gavin Jones. We originally intended this episode to be a brief Q&A about Gav’s life, loves and all things X-Men; as well as the usual format of a Racks podcast. Unfortunately because we are very good buddies in ‘real’ life this episode takes on a life of its own, with us waxing lyrical about anything and everything (but we do keep it nerdy...mostly). It should be noted that A LOT of booze was consumed during this epic adventure and boy does it show...we had a great time though!!

After a HUGE ramble about Torchwood, X Men, how lovely Paul Cornell and Mike Carey are, and many many many other nerd topics, we manage a very brief review section where we discuss Crossed Family Values #2 (SPOILERS), and Alan Moore’s Top 10. In keeping with the rest of the episode this section gets a bit de-railed with us nearly coming to blows over Moore, with me sticking the boot into Ellis while I'm at it.

Instead of a News section I invited Gav to bring along the patented Sidekickcast Secrets and Lies - where 5 items of news are presented, one of which is false. I enlist the help of ECBT2000AD co-host (and the other half) Rich to try and suss out the Lie.

A quick and very inebriated Rack Music section rounds off episode 55 - hopefully order will be restored for the next ep when Stacey returns to keep me on track...maybe :/

Link: http://splashpage.mtv.com/2010/04/19/garth-ennis-crossed-movie-details/

I've stayed pretty quiet about most of the news that came out of last weekend's C2E2 convention, mainly because I want to do a C2E2 con special Secrets and Lies for the next edition of the Sidekickcast. There is however one piece of information that I simply have to comment on, they're making a movie of Crossed! In an interview over at MTV Splash Page Garth Ennis says he's written a screenplay for the production company Kickstart Productions but as of yet that's where his involvement ends.

As with most things Ennis does Crossed is a dark, gruesome, sometimes funny but always thought provoking drama about a group of survivors in a world ravaged by the Crossed; a kind of fucked zombie that represents the worst of humanities baser instincts. We've been following the recently wrapped series quite closely on the Sidekickcast and it got 5 stars from me. I think the series is perfect for the big screen treatment, especially when you consider the success of the zombie genre and films like the recent Romero remake of The Crazies which Crossed is very similar in tone and subsatnce. I do have to wonder whether the general movie going audience are quite ready for Mr Ennis' particular brand of comedic but sometimes truly horrific violence and wit but I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out. The worst thing you could do with Crossed is to soften it, it needs to pack the punch that it does otherwise it's just another zombie/crazy bastards post apocalyptic road movie and we've got enough of those. With Ennis writing I'm sure he won't be pulling any punches but let's hope those Hollywood script doctors don't get their hands on it and we get the PF-13 Crossed that should never be.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4370072/New-pornography-laws-could-make-comic-books-illegal-claim-campaigners.html

Thanks to two new pieces of UK legislation your comic book collection could become illegal and titles you've been collecting for a long time could become banned. The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act and the Coroners and Justice Bill are set to ban images that are considered to be 'extreme', those that contain any kind of sexually violent or obscene acts from being published, esepecially those with children. At the outset this seems fair enough especially when you bring kids into the equation but it's the definitions of 'obscene' and 'sexually violent' that cause problems. How far does this go?

Read more »

Link: http://www.avatarpress.com/

About three years ago I discovered Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon and since then I have been forever changed. Melodramatic? Yes, very much so. Any less true? No way. Preacher started me looking at comics other than those that contained capes and tights, and I've never looked back. I still pick up all my superhero stuff but now I love to search out stories that have nothing to do with all that and simply lose myself in a well crafted genre story, the more messed up, the better. Which brings us back to Garth Ennis and his new offering from Avatar Press; Crossed.

Read more »