The Daily Planet Presents: Thursday Walk of Shame #1 with Jeff Ayers and Dave Press.

I shot this idea at Jeff earlier this week of doing a Basement Tapes-like weekly column where he and I talk about this Wednesday’s comics and other comic related events the morning after. Hence, “Thursday’s Walk of Shame.”

Now, would probably be a really great time to say GIANT SPOILERS from this week, and last week’s comics.  So you’ve been warned.

And. Here. We .Go.

DAVE: So, BLACKEST NIGHT #1: Really? Really, with the ripping out of the hearts of Guardians and Hawkpeople left and right? Jesus. Geoff Johns, you’re a good, pleasant guy, a kind-hearted individual, where does this come from? You gotta see someone. You have some repressed anger going on here.

JEFF: Reminds me of George Lucas’ similar fixation with using lightsabers to chop off limbs. The Star Wars universe is filled with amputees! The first comic book I ever read was an issue of Green Lantern when I was four years old. I think Hal used his ring to make a big-ass green fist to punch the baddie. I’d say this is a bit of a departure from the tone of that issue.

Yeah maybe a little bit of a departure. That’s funny. What is also funny, but probably not really, my first comic as a kid was a Green Lantern comic too.  It was an annual, I think it, and I still remember the cover: it had Hal Jordan bursting through this giant robot.  No idea what it was about, but I think I still have it somewhere in my parent’s garage upstate.

I don’t know if you had a chance to check it out, but I just got done with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep #1 and found it okay. Art not too flashy- refreshingly so- and a lot of bang for the buck. Given the source material (it’s a direct adaptation of PKD’s novel) it’s pretty hard to go wrong. Just one quam:

It’s #1. OF 24!!!!!! Am I going to be around in two years or so when it concludes? Maybe. Is Boom, the book’s publisher? Can they sustain interest in this for two years? I wish them all the best, but…. To  paraphrase the closing line of Blade Runner’s theatrical cut (which I prefer): I don’t know how long this book and I have together. Who does?

Whaddya think of that Spider-Man variant with Nixon on the cover?

I did look at it [Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep], and you’re right, it is hard for them to get it wrong by transplanting Dick’s words into the comic.  However, I imagine most of the people that book would appeal to are huge into the movie, and have probably read the book a while back.  So, in the end, I’m not really sure why this is a must buy.

I don’t think anything of the Nixon variant, though I will say how about the giant reveal in Amazing Spider-Man annual with Ben Reilly being alive? Sorry, spoilers, but its been a week so if you have a problem, feel free to pick a fight in the comments.

OMG. I didn’t see that. Was he wearing that Flashdance meets Carnage Scarlet Spider costume? Cuz that thing’s rad…

No, he was calling himself Velociraptor, which is probably just as Flashdance as his previous version. He had jaws, and bone knives coming out of his forearms, very much like that formerly stupid mutant. What was her name? Oh yeah, Marrow. God, remember when the X-Men comics had a fixation on gross mutants…Marrow and Maggot? Those were the times.

I feel like I have to bring it up: but Wednesday Comics? I loved Ben Caldwell’s Wonder Woman strip, but I hear the predominant favorite is Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook’s Kamandi, but that doesn’t surprise me.

Ryan Sook could draw a comic about styrofoam and it’d be gorgeous.

Kerschl and Fletcher’s Flash page is my fave. Haven’t felt anything but “meh” about the character since the height of Mark Waid’s nineties run, but this is dead on the characters I loved growing up.

I liked Johns’ run on The Flash, but that was forever ago, and the book just hasn’t been that good (barring the short stint Tom Peyer had on it).

I just finished The Nobody and you mentioned something about how you liked the smell of it.  I liked how it was this almost Cormac McCarthian statement on loneliness.  I also really loved Jeff Lemire and how he captures a small town, I haven’t seen that done well in comics ever, but Lemire really captured what its like to be in a small town, or be from a small town.

Yeah. It’s pretty terrific, and as deftly executed as his previous Essex County books, which Top Shelf is reprinting in one volume later this summer.

Back to the smell of the book… from a book sniffer’s perspective let me say that it’s important your book stand out from the crowd. The Nobody’s piquant, inky aroma is distinct to say the least. And bloody hell is it pronounced!

[LAUGHS]. Yeah, this is my first introduction to Lemire so I will definitely be picking up Essex County when it comes out, and his new Vertigo series “Sweet Tooth”.

Last bit: ScarJo shows up in EW as the Black Widow.  What are your thoughts on this? She looks more like Anna Mercury than she does the Black Widow but I still say I would rather see Emily Blunt.

Ah, Scarjo & Ryan Reynolds, comic book movies’ power couple. Ya know, I just IMDB’d Emily Blunt and I’ve not seen anything she’s ever been in. Daaavid, have you been watching “The Devil Wears Prada” behind my back? I gotta agree with you. She’s much more exotic and her cool eyes and demeanor more suitable.

At this point in the conversation, I jump through the screen like Ray Palmer does through a telephone and begin strangling Jeff for “The Devil Wears Prada” crack. This concludes the first issue of THURSDAY WALK OF SHAME. Maybe there will be another one next week, if Jeff survives. (Dave exits, while sharpening knives).