Movie Fighters Episode 1: Double Dragon

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Today, Matt Wilson and I are launching our newest project, Movie Fighters! If you read the movie reviews that we used to do at ComicsAlliance, then you’re already familiar with the format: We pick a (usually terrible) movie and go in-depth with it so you don’t have to. Movie Fighters is the same style, but instead of breaking it up into a two-part review, we’re doing it as an all-new audio experience. It’s like it’s being broadcast directly to your iPod or other MP3 playing device! We call it… a podcast.

The first episode is up now, where we go head-to-head with 1994′s genuinely terrible Double Dragon, and you can get the whole thing for just one dollar. And if you’ve already donated to the War Rocket Ajax fundraiser, then there’s a download code for the first episode waiting for you in your inbox. We’ll be doing the show biweekly, starting with finishing our promised round-up of fighting movie games, going through Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, Tekken, King of Fighters, and then on to our next listener-voted series. Will we finally be forced to sit through all five (six? seven?) Resident Evil movies? Who knows?

If you still have doubts, you can listen to the first track (our introduction, where we talk about skating rinks and beat-em-ups) for free, so please give it a shot and let us know what you think!

War Rocket Ajax #158: A Man Who Seeks Revenge with Greg Rucka

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This week on War Rocket Ajax, Greg Rucka is back to talk about his highly successful Kickstarter for Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether! Also, and I know this is going to be shocking, we talk about Batman a little bit. Plus, barbecue and wrestling are the two great tastes that taste great together, and we announce our brand new project!

War Rocket Ajax #158: A Man Who Seeks Revenge with Greg Rucka

(WARNING: Contains NSFW language)


We are available on iTunes! Click here to find ComicsAlliance Presents War Rocket Ajax in iTunes, where you can subscribe and leave us a review if you enjoy the show!

You can also stream the show using the player above, or download it in MP3 format from WarRocketAjax.com.

Show Notes:

Follow Greg Rucka on Twitter and Tumblr. He likes to answer people’s questions about Wonder Woman.

Read Lady Sabre, by Greg and Rick Burchett, and then check out the Kickstarter!

Matt’s new column at MTV Geek. He talks about Kickstarter there, too.

Tim Donst cut a promo from the hospital.

Chris’s Rec: The Chikara Mixtapes

Matt’s Rec: Django Unchained

Comics Reviewed:  Batman & Red Hood #20, Batman #20, Archer & Armstrong #0.

Subatomic Party Girls Launches May 22

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Mark your calendars for May 22nd, folks: In two weeks, Chad Bowers, Erica Henderson, Josh Krach and I are launching Subatomic Party Girls through Monkeybrain Comics, available only on Comixology! Together, Cleo, Libby and Vette are Beryllium Steel, the hottest power pop trio in music, and they’re about to launch their biggest tour date ever: Performing live from the surface of the moon as a test for the brand-new subatomic light drive. If it works, it won’t just be the biggest stunt in rock ‘n’ roll history, it’ll usher in a new age of nearly instantaneous space travel. If something goes wrong, however, the girls might just find themselves stranded on the other side of the galaxy with space pirates, intergalactic crime bosses and a spacefaring cult that wants them dead. I’ll let you figure out how it goes down.

The first issue of the ongoing series is a jam-packed sixteen pages, plus bonus material from Erica’s sketchbook, and it’ll set you back a cool 99¢ for the download. It’ll be available on Wednesday, May 22, but if you can’t wait, you can pre-order it right now!

It probably goes without saying, but I’m really excited about this. Chad and I have been wanting to do a book like this forever — I think the title actually predates Awesome Hospital — and if you’re not familiar with Erica’s work, she’s basically amazing. I set up a Tumblr where we can post some stuff, so keep an eye on that for promos as we ramp up to the first issue. So mark your calendar, check the tumblr and preorder the new series, and get ready for a whole new era of the Action Age!

Chris vs. Porn: ‘Xena XXX’

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Of all the titles I had at my old job, “America’s Most Beloved Superhero Porn Parody Reviewer” was the one that got me the weirdest stuff in the mail. Rather than let it all sit on my desk gathering dust, I’m going head on into it to bring you the least erotic reviews that I possibly can. Today: Xena XXX: An Exquisite Films Parody.

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War Rocket Ajax #157: Hashtag Hireable with Caleb Goellner

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This week on War Rocket Ajax, we’re joined by my ex-boss, Caleb Goellner, for a show that’s equal parts a memorial for ComicsAlliance and a pretty optimistic chat about his awesome comics, Task Force Rad Squad and Mermaid Evolution. It’s a long one, clocking in at almost two hours, but… well, we had a lot to say. Plus: Love Haters, Matt finally discovers Copra, and yet another discussion of why Chris can’t play the shootin’ games that all the cool kids like so much.

War Rocket Ajax #157: Hashtag Hireable with Caleb Goellner

(WARNING: Contains NSFW language)


We are available on iTunes! Click here to find ComicsAlliance Presents War Rocket Ajax in iTunes, where you can subscribe and leave us a review if you enjoy the show!

You can also stream the show using the player above, or download it in MP3 format from WarRocketAjax.com.

Show Notes:

Caleb’s on Twitter! Follow him if you like hearing about pugs and snowboards, bro.

Pay whatever you want for Task Force Rad Squad (even $0, if you’re an unemployed cheapskate) and read Mermaid Evolution online!

The War Rocket Ajax donation drive is back. Hit the comments or send an email to warrocketpodcast at gmail and tell us what you’d like for rewards.

Rest In Peace, Michael Ryan. Listen to his amazing hater story from his appearance on the show.

Which is your favorite Mighty Mutanimal?

Chris’s Rec: Chris Sims and Matt Wilson, for all your bad movie-watching needs.

Matt’s Rec: Farcry 3: Blood Dragon

Comics Reviewed: Adventures of Superman #1, The Copra Compendium, Indestructible Hulk #7.

FunkyWatch: April’s Most Depressing Funky Winkerbean And Crankshaft Strips

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FunkyApril Over the past 40 years, Tom Batiuk’s Funky Winkerbean has transitioned from a gag-a-day comic strip about a high school to an ongoing chronicle of pure, abject misery. Thanks to the ongoing commentary on Josh Fruhlinger’s Comics Curmudgeon, I am now completely obsessed with it, which is why I spend a little time every month rounding up its finest examples of crushing despair.

This month, things are obviously a little shaky for me, but as is so often the case, I find that it’s pretty easy to take solace in the misery of others, especially when “others” means “Les Moore and his infinitely punchable face,” and I gotta say: Over the past few weeks, this thing has been in rare form. Evil fathers! Memories of cancer! The phrase “he was murdered when I was a baby!” It’s a good one. For certain values of “good.”

Funky Winkerbean, April 12:

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For those of you who haven’t been obsessing over this strip for the past two years, Lisa’s Story is the memoir Les wrote about how his first wife died of breast cancer, and is, to date, the only bit of success that he’s had in his career as a writer. The big development in April has been that it’s finally been optioned for a movie — or in this case, a made-for-cable deathstravaganza — and that Les himself has been given the job of writing the screenplay.

This is important information to know, because what you see above is a strip where we find out that Les’s reaction to the prospect of sitting down and reliving his first wife’s slow, painful death is to get horny enough to start straight up pawing at his current wife until she physically shoves him out of the room.

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CA RIP

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As you probably heard already, AOL shut down ComicsAlliance last week after three years and three Eisner Award nominations. This is pretty upsetting for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that I’m currently out of a full-time job.

More than that, though, CA was a dream job in a lot of ways. I’ve wanted to be a professional writer since I was 12, and CA was literally the place that made that happen, allowing me to quit my day job and focus on making jokes about Batman on a professional level. There were so many opportunities that I got because of that job, and so many friends. That’s the thing about CA, and one of the reasons I think it worked so well: We all really got along, which made it fun to argue with each other and easy to write things that were meant to entertain ourselves more than anyone else. Working with Laura, Joe, Caleb and Andy gave me a pretty incredible amount of freedom to write about things I wanted to write about, and as selfish as it is, losing that is pretty depressing — something that’s been slightly exaggerated by the fact that most reactions are almost treating me like I am actually dead, instead of just sitting at home replaying Fable II  and hustling for more work. But on the bright side, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve gotten a lot of support from friends and readers, and it seems like there are a lot of people out there who are going to miss CA as much as I will. Or, you know, as much as you can without it directly impacting your wallet.

As for what’s next, I’m really not sure. This kind of took us all by surprise, and I have no idea how long ComicsAlliance.com is going to stay up or if they’re going to keep my work available there. War Rocket Ajax is Matt’s and mine, so that’ll continue into the forseeable future (and hey, now might be a good time to visit our sponsors). I’ve got a few unannounced projects that’ll be revealed soon, so I’ll obviously be talking about them here, on Twitter and on Tumblr, and I’ve got that semi-regular gig writing jokes about ’90s technology in movies at Wired, but I still don’t know where I’ll land permanently, if anywhere. I’ve seen  a lot of people mention that I could just keep on writing here, but that’s not really that workable considering that writing here doesn’t make a whole lot of money. A very, very kind reader did throw a donation my way to keep the ISB up and running, though, so there’s that. But, you know, hopefully it’ll all work out.

For now, I’m still just kind of shocked about CA getting axed, so forgive me if this got a little rambly. We’ll see what happens!