The anomaly, my ship, my crew,  I suppose you're worried about your fish, too.

Last stop.

There are certain rides we all know that we shouldn't take - strangers with big vans, the cab without lights, some lady with a Jesus fish and beads on the seats - but some rides will really be your last.  The Greeks had Charon to ferry souls across the Styx to the afterlife, Disney made a pretty penny off of giving Davey Jones and the Flying Dutchman a similar task, and now Simon Birks, RH Stewart, Lyndon White, and Dan Thorens at Blue Fox Comics present the last thing that some jerks will ever need: hope.

Rule 63 in Sherwood

The Robin Hood stories have always had a strong following. There’s something about taking from the rich and giving to the poor that resonates well with the majority of folks…can’t imagine why.  The myth of the honorable thief mixed with an altruistic nature and forbidden love is hard for anyone to pass up.  It’s the story that has it all, which is why seeing someone hit it with an alternate vision is such fun. It allows us to separate ourselves from the tales as we’ve heard them before [whether Flynn, Bedford, Costner, Elwes, or Crowe are your seminal take (We can all agree it’s not Crowe, right?)] and apply the touchstones of it in new ways (i.e., stealing from the rich and giving to the poor could be the result of trying to trick a populace into support, hiding your true self of being altruistic, and all the best things end up lining the rich boy’s son’s pockets).  It’s a technique that can be very useful; changing minor parts allows the author to play us against the standard narrative and opens the world to incredible changes that can not only re-imagine a world that hasn’t been updated in a century or so, but broaden its message for the modern reader as well as being very entertaining.

An idea is like a virus.

This was the opening of Inception, and it’s fairly recognized throughout our social spheres today, with a video or work “going viral” being the best potential hope for any creator.  Within this anthology series we get idea seeds from several different and wildly varied creators. We also get some ideas based very much in the abstract, and some who turn those abstracts into something logical and grounded.  The act of creation is often a violent one, with infinite possibilities being whittled down until the story exists as a whole. Once your lead turns into a hero, the choices become “stay a hero” or “become a villain,” and either choice kills the potential of the other side.  This is something the Big Two try to avoid at all costs with many technological, magical, and simply oddball MacGuffins that allow Cap to be Hydra or a whole half of the galaxy to die and it gets wiped clean like an etch-a-sketch.  This isn’t the violent storytelling that often brings out the best kinds of anguish when something ends, but what we have here are four-page arcs that have a small space to squeeze the entire possibility of creation into. There are some bold and ambitious voices doing it.

Love is in the air at Fanbase Press! In this magical month of romance and enchantment, the Fanbase Press Staff and Contributors decided to stop and smell the roses. Throughout the week of Valentine’s Day, a few members of the Fanbase Press crew will be sharing their personal love letters to the areas of geekdom they adore the most.

Dear Deadpool Creative Team,

From the minute “someone” leaked the test footage, you had me enthralled. Could we really be getting the Deadpool we deserved? Could we handle all the chimichanga goodness? How refreshing is the smell of fine Corinthian leather in the middle of a fight? Those few minutes of footage were all we needed to demand that the studio let us see your entire brilliance, and we demanded it with all the Internet’s speed, anonymity, and vitriol we could muster. As fanboys and fangirls, it was a considerable wave of demand that was thankfully heard by the suits, so y’all could make us very, very happy. You knew what would happen, you sly dogs. You hollered, “Come out and play!” and we were more than happy to oblige.

Thy will be done.

The world is a bit of a mess right now.  There’s a lot of crazy out there hiding behind religious texts that align with their particular brand of hating folks or perpetrating terrible acts that may not have unanimous support of modern communities.  It’s not just one religion that people are using out there, either. There are sects of just about every major religion (and slews of minor ones) that twist doctrine to make their specific brand of awful justified.  Why do I bring this up in a comic review?  Well, Leonie O’Moore’s Lord tells just such a tale, and while its protagonist is a sympathetic character to a considered majority of the population, there are those who would brand this book as pushing an agenda rather than being a wonderfully aware British-Countryside horror (Think of the movies that Hot Fuzz was based on.) that feels like it could be just as relevant in today’s world as the time period that it’s based in.

Bless your heart.

Betvin Geant and Kay have put together an intriguing and singular kind of tale in Prince of Peace (formerly titled The Rise of the Antichrist).  It's one that has far-reaching implications about faith, and what it means to all of the various people who engage with it.  When a young man gains powers beyond the pale of mortals, his love of scripture from an early age becomes manifest in his actions.  He concludes that, as he has abilities greater than those of men and the only person with similar abilities is the Son of God, he must obviously be sent by God to heal the world.  Whether that supposition has any merit is never quite answered throughout, though we see obvious parallels to the testaments in other characters and events in the world.  That's the part of this work that I've always enjoyed, that the cat was always in the box; though he met with an angel/devil, only he saw them, so perhaps it could be delusion guiding a disturbed youth, but there was an outside shot that was legitimate. 

Hold on, Dorothy. Kansas is going bye-bye.

Long before the time of books, radio, television, and video games, people were telling stories.  So many of these stories have been told so many times that they share common elements, but the twist of one fact could change the course and create an entirely new tale.  That’s part of the difficulty of trying to bring one of these old tales to light, as people can sometimes lose focus, feeling that they know just where the story is going and may miss the truth that lives within it. 

You don’t know me.