Unkie Dev's Amazing Stuff

Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neal's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier finally comes out this week. This banishes all other comic book releases to the long box of unworthy trash... yes, even YOU B.P.R.D. Killing Ground #4. When a new League book hits the shelves there ARE no other comic books that week. A new League is a victory for the Earth... but a sad challenge for those of us who have to write about comics.

CEREAL KILLERS

Since we can't talk about comic books we can talk about, uhm... BREAKFAST CEREAL! Did you know at the height of their fame, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had their own breakfast cereal? And why not? If they're going to give a cereal to C-3P0 then the turtles can have one, too. You DID know C-3P0 had a cereal, right? It was a delicious Honeycomb knock-off with the original name "C-3P0's." Catchy. Relegating such an uninspiring character from a sensational property to "Cereal Box Hero" status is like if they made a Watergate-based cereal and called it "Agnew's."

Turtles cereal was corn Chex with colored marshmallow shapes of their signature weapons. There was a pink Sai for Raph, a blue sword for Leo and a yellow jump-suit marshmallow for April. The corn Chex was SUPPOSED to be a net, but it was Corn Chex.

If the Turtles hadn't had a movie then this comic book property probably never would have made it to the breakfast aisle. Hopefully next summer we'll have The Watchmen breakfast cereal with naked blue Dr. Manhattan marshmallows and sugar coated smiley faces that turn blood red in milk.

BACK IN BLACK

I can't write about anything else: L.E.G.: The Black Dossier finally comes out this week! I can't stop thinking about it! I write these things on Monday so that means I have an unbearable two days to wait. I'm a League junkie and could tell you anything you want to know. You could, too if you only bought Jess Nevins' companion books, Heroes and Monsters and A Blazing World, available NOW from Forbidden Planet. You'll learn all about the source material as well as character cameos and hidden facts, for example: Did you know there's a Twin Peaks reference in the second volume, or the hows-and-whys on Dracula ever appearing?

MORE MOORE

As a funny comics guy I recommend Alan Moore's Top 10 and Tomorrow Stories, home to the hilarious dead-pan child uber-brain Jack B. Quick. Jack is a 10-year-old genius growing up in rural farm country where he experiments with the darkest sciences, much to the suicidal chagrin of his parents. He once tied buttered toast to the feet of a cat and threw it at the ground. The toast and cat, unable to land butter side down or onto its feet, spun uncontrollably creating the world's first perpetual motion machine. Good stuff.

Another hilarious Alan Moore bit comes from Batman Black and White, Vol. 1, a great trade paperback showcasing top b/w artists, such as Jim Lee's first Batman work and inspired outings from top Batman writers like Paul Dini. Anywho, there's a great Alan Moore/Simon Bisley team-up where Batman and the Joker play out a comic book from behind the scenes, palling around off-panel, reading their lines together, working on fight choreography and complaining that the extras eat all the good food at the commissary before they, the stars, get there.

THE REAL DEAL: Forget comics, Alan Moore is one of the best writers in fiction today period. If you've never read the League you should get on that. I feel bad for good books like 100 Bullets, New Avengers, and the DC collection of Sgt. Rockthat all ship this week. You books may as well be gnats at the battle of Normandy. There is ONE comic book this week, and I can't wait to read it. Black Dossier: MAKE MINE MOORE!

By Guest Contributor: Unkie Dev