King Kong

Keeping with the review theme, I just saw Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Yeah, this movie was released forever ago, but whatever…

For some reason I was a bit weary with this flick when it was released… While I loved the Lord of the Rings movies, I always thought they were a bit too long, but after a while, I gave that a pass due to the huge amount of material they had to cover. When I found out that King Kong was over 3 hours… I couldn’t see how they managed to stretch 3 hours out of a movie about a giant monkey. I mean…find the monkey, monkey falls in love, tragic act 3, The End.

But holy cow was this a great flick. Sure they probably could’ve trimmed 20-30 minutes off this thing without batting an eye… the sub plot with the kid from “Nicolas Nickelby” was pretty much useless and Jack Black outrunning anything, especially a raptor, is about as unbelievable as it gets, but by the end of the movie I could care less. From the crazy good Kong vs. T-Rex scenes to the end, I was seriously hooked.

I wish I didn’t take a pass on this when it was in theaters and if any of you haven’t seen it yet… the weekend is as good as any for a flick like King Kong.

--R

Reviews and Randall News

Been a while since I posted so here’s a quick lil’ comic review and some Randall news.

First for the reviews. I finally got out to the comic shop on Tuesday, (I know that makes no sense, I should’ve waited until Wednesday, but whatever.) I met my main man C.B. Cebulski for a few drinks and he played a little part in my comic selection this week. I was about to drop All Star Superman. I’m always weary of Grant Morrison comics as while they’ll be fun books for a few issues, they seem to turn into esoteric “Grant Morrison Stories” at the drop of a hat. That has to be on it’s way with AS Superman and after the so-so issue 4, I was going to take a pass on issue 5 and just avoid the impending disappointment. C.B. told me that he was also on the fence with dropping this one, but he picked up issue 5 and really enjoyed it. Being that I only was only going to buy 2 comics I figured “what the hell.”

All Star Superman By Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
An issue with no Superman (at least in his suit) but Morrison writes a pretty darn good Lex Luthor and all in all, I really enjoyed the interplay between Luthor and Clark. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s going to happen with this run, let’s just hope this book doesn’t go into the “Morrison Zone”. Until then, I’m back on board. Thanks, C.B.

Savage Dragon 128 By Erik Larsen.
Another fun ish from Larsen. I’m such a fan of the Dragon that I never worry about dropping the book. As long as he’s making it, I’ll read it. If you haven’t picked up the Dragon in a while, go ahead and pick one up. It’s good ol’ fashioned comic book fun. Plus, if you’re a fan of Mark Millar’s Wanted, it’s a crossover with those characters.

The Goon Noir By various creators
As Erik Powell finishes the “Chinatown” graphic novel, a book I can’t friggin’ wait for, folks like Patton Oswalt, Mike Ploog, Steve Niles and others put together a really fun book full of black and white stories featuring the regular Goon cast. I’ve endlessly praised this book and I’ll continue to do so. In my humble opinion, it’s the best book on the stands. Bar-none.

So that’s my comic “haul”. With all the books on the stands, I can’t believe I walk out of the shop with 3 books. Anyway…

Randall is still rolling along. I’ve gotten caught up in the story and I’m really enjoying drawing the strip, so the plan is to stock up on pages and maybe do a new page every Wednesday type-thing. I’ll see if I can’t put together Randall Month over at LazyComix.com, look for that in October, in the meantime, here’s a sneak peek at the next page.

Thanks for reading!
--Randy

Randall Premiere!

After what has seemed like and eternity, the Randall Relaunch is finally here. As I was uploading the new pages on my site, I was reminded that I did 22 pages of the “old” Randall before deciding to start over. Heck, there was some time there that I was going just bag the whole idea. Nevertheless, I’m glad I didn’t.

So here’s the link, head on over and check out the strip and please shoot me some feedback here or even via email. I’d love to hear it.

Thanks for looking,
Randy

American Splendor at Vertigo

Last week the first Vertigo published issue of Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor hit the shelves.

If you didn’t pick it up last week, don’t forget to put it on your list for this week. It’s a book that changed the way I look at comics and it really fell into my lap at the right time in my life. Ereisa bought me an issue of “The Complete Crumb, Volume 12” which happened to contain a huge chunk of the Pekar/Crumb team-ups. That book really got me into the world of alternative comics. And thank god, because without them, I’d surely have dropped comics altogether. There’s only so much late shipping over-written crossover superhero comics I can handle.

So go out and not only support Harvey but also support DC for publishing a book like American Splendor. It’s nice to see a big-time comic publisher put something besides another tights and capes book on the shelves.

Meanwhile, Randall Redux is inching closer and closer every day. It’s really turning into something I’m excited about and after all the trepidation about continuing the Randall comic, I couldn’t be happier that I stuck it out.

Stay tuned and Go Buy American Splendor! There’s gotta be some book you’re about to drop anyway!

--R

5 Years Later...

This is the only comic I’ve done dealing with 9-11.

Someday, I’ll do another one…but here it is, 5 years later and I’m not emotionally ready to sit down and draw the thing.

Someday.

http://www.lazycomix.com/nyc006001.html