While sorting through a bunch of papers—searching for receipts and other tax nonsense after my recent move to New Jersey—I came across a Valentine I received from my lovely girlfriend Jessi.
I’d say this is easily the best greeting card I have ever received, because the premise is so ludicrous, but then I looked closer and remembered the stunning (and possibly prognosticatory) addition made by Jessi back in February (almost a month before this blog’s historic launch).
Note the third enemy: Peanuts!
Further verification that my sworn enmity against legumes predates this blog, as well as verification I have a really swell girl!
In what will likely become a regular feature—in some way, shape or form—on EoP, here’s a comic cover I am highlighting simply due to its inclusion of luchadores!
Moon Knight #29
¡Viva Lucha Libre!
The issue is written by Mike Benson and this whole south of the border arc has featured some incredible art by Jefte Palo (most notable for his work on Black Panther with Jason Aaron during “Secret Invasion”). The cover is by Gabriele Dell’Otto.
I have been flipping through the recent issues of this book mainly for Palo’s great, gritty interiors and got kind of giddy when it dawned on me that luchadores had to be involved—which led to this awesome cover, so early giddiness justified as I’m now a happy man.
“Why do you love lucha libre so much?” you loyal readers are undoubtedly asking yourselves. Well, maybe it’s because I grew up a WCW fan and was very into wrestling when WCW had its huge luchador boom back in the late ’90s. Maybe it’s because there is an enthralling element of mythic tradition surrounding these wrestlers and their masks. And maybe it’s because they can do f–king hurricanranas!
Whatever it is, I love these guys! Stay tuned and I am sure I’ll come up with a better explanation for why I think lucha libre is fantastic, but for now, just know it is something that endlessly fascinates me and I will post about it occasionally.
I’ve been reading Robert Kirkman’s Invincible for years, and I’ve come to prefer current artist Ryan Ottley more than series co-creator Cory Walker, but damn! You gotta show some respect when the guy can return to the book for two-issues and put out gorgeous art like this!
Is your mind not blown?!
Now, this is awesome for a few reasons…
First, it features Allen the Alien, who is probably in my top five comic characters of all time. I don’t care if you’ve got 70 years of DC or Marvel comics history to back you up, something about a hulking, one-eyed, smiley alien is just pure and fun and epitomizes one of the reasons I still love superhero comics. So, yeah, he makes my top five (more on this later, maybe).
Second, while I’ve been a big fan of Invincible for a long while, the book hasn’t been grabbing me like it used to, save the last time I got extremely excited about this book with November’s Allen the Alien and Omni-Man-centric issue #55! As I said back in Wizard Universe’s Thursday Morning Quarterback review column that chilly, November week:
“When an issue kicks off with Mark Grayson (Invincible) and Atom Eve getting clothes-less and cuddly, you know what that means, right?! No, not sex! Well, yes…sex…but more importantly, an issue of Invincible starring the greatest comic character since sliced bread: Allen the Alien! As a diehard Invincible fan, I have to confess that little purple kids murdering people and lovey-dovey Mark and Eve haven’t held my interest much over the past couple issues. However, take me to space and show me my favorite character in the book (Allen the mutha-lovin’ alien!) teaming up with Omni-Man for an epic prison break story where the duo crushes a Viltrumite’s head like a mustachioed grape…yeah, I’m back in, big-time! Seriously, issues like this are why I fell in love with this book—this is Invincible at it’s best! Oh, and Battle Beast returns this ish! Battle Beast! Now, seriously, when do we get the Allen the Alien/Battle Beast Invincible Team-Up ongoing?”
So, rounding out that second point, I love this duo of Allen and Nolan (Omni-Man) and the promise of more is just f–king fantastic!
Thirdly, this book is at its best for me (of late, at least) when it is dropping tidbits or major points about the inevitable conflict with the Viltrumites, so a two-parter that sets the scene for that and features my main men…yeah, I am pretty excited for these two issue!
Maybe my favorite cover ever (seriously!), this piece by Gabriele Dell’Otto kicked off issue #4 (of 6) from Keith Giffen’s masterful Marvel cosmic extravaganza Annihilation. A truly epic “David vs. Goliath” image (in this case Drax vs. Thanos), it also actually teases the issue’s events, a rarity in modern comics. Feast your peepers on this puppy…
Recently, I signed up for Google’s Adsense service and the results of what ads are popping up on my site have been as hilarious as I expected. You see, Adsense scopes out your site’s content and frequently used words to decide which ads to place (when I don’t mess with any of the settings). Now, my site is Enemy of Peanuts (preaching death to the legume menace through blogging, natch!) but Adsense just sees “peanut” a bunch and makes a majority of my ads about the devil-nut and where you can buy it (and oddly enough, about Rachel Ray’s weight loss—could she be an agent of the enemy?!).
So, while I expected this might happen, the irony of this glaring contradiction on the site hopefully brings a chuckle to each and every one of you loyal readers and any interweb passersby that end up at EoP!
(To Google’s defense—I do so love them!—Adsense does pop up some stuff about Charles Schulz’s Peanuts and allergy awareness, so good on them!)
Because who doesn’t love reading about things someone else likes on the internet, I bring you Choice Comic Covers: Or simply, my favorite comic covers. The first entry in “The Chosen” is back from the days when Greg Rucka was taking the ol’ Canucklehead on a series of gritty, street-level adventures like avenging a waitress’ death after she’s gunned down by a man-cult and busting up human trafficking rings. I think I have a particular soft spot for this one as the issue came out right when I was getting back into comics hardcore and I gobbled up every issue of Rucka’s Wolverine. The cover, by Esad Ribic, is simply striking, badass and does a great job expressing what this book was all about back then. Anywho, enjoy!
As a guy who reads a butt-ton of comics, it’s pretty hard not to come up with an idea or two for some of my own panel-by-panel storytelling—Enemy Of Peanuts: The Webcomic is one such idea. EoP came to me as the name for a strip I could do based on a few ideas that had been kicked around by some close friends and myself back in college (former roommate Matt Misch and good buddy Frank Johnson stand out as people I recall discussing the idea with, though there are assuredly many more). Essentially, the story would be based loosely on me but more so on my allergy (peanuts! legumes!), and the original idea was almost entirely me fighting Mr. Peanut…constantly. The idea has evolved quite a bit since then (including the creation of the Enemy of Peanuts, who—though fictional—is twittering away already), as it had a comic appeal I couldn’t quite pass up, and I’ve now started laying down some of the over-arching plot outlines, fight scenes and such. It should be a lot of fun, so stay tuned.
As far as the art goes, I’m well aware that I am not an artist (I’d say “amateur cartoonist” at best), but years of doodling comics and characters in notepad margins shouldn’t go to waste! So, here, I am going to be tackling art duties on the strip…for now. In a perfect world, some amazing unknown artistic talent (Holy Shit! It could be you!) will stumble across my “strips” (read: storyboards) and offer his skills to make this hobby into a real cinematic adventure. Or, with luck, practice will make perfect and I’ll get kinda good. Who knows?!
That said, I’d love to get some feedback on the photoshop aid I’m using for the time being. The promo images above are all the same save a photoshop effect making them look, hopefully, better. I’d be insanely appreciative of anyone who’ll leave some comments about which effects you like better and which image-style has or would have you most excited to read the EoP’s adventures every week (or whatever the posting schedule ends up being for the strip).
That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by and checking the early stages of Enemy Of Peanuts: The Webcomic out, and please, leave a little feedback
Why is Easter so great? As this post’s title may have given away, it isn’t the bunnies but the edible decorations that made my Easter this year!
After coloring a dozen eggs with my lovely girlfriend Jessi on Saturday, I got a chance to utilize my mad deli skills making a little egg salad for some—as I’ve dubbed them—Easter Egg Salad Sammiches!
The delicious final product alongside suggested bread.
(For the record, I did work in a deli one summer back in college, and at a sandwich joint for about a year and a half after that where we made all the chicken, tuna and seafood salad in house.)
I’m a big fan of mayo-based mushes used to make sandwiches, so egg salad is always high on my list of lunch options. That said, I’ve tasted my fair share and can safely say that the concoction I free-styled in the kitchen today may have been the best egg salad I’ve ever had. Tooting my own horn? A bit. But seriously, this egg salad was darn good—so good, I’ve decided to share the recipe here…
You’ll need:
-Roughly 12 hard boiled eggs
-4 heaping spoonfuls of Miracle Whip Lite
-A small squirt of creamy horseradish
-3 large spoonfuls of lemon juice
-A few generous dashes of salt and pepper (maybe a tsp and a half for recipe sticklers)
-Twice that dash-age of paprika (maybe a tbsp, when all is said and done)
-A generous portion of cilantro (1/2 cup, methinks)
-Some diced onions, red peppers and green peppers—about a 1/2 to 2/3 cup—leftover from nachos the nite before (Note: diced veggies don’t NEED to be from nacho nite, but I’d recommend it…at least for the nachos)
Now, to prepare, chop those eggs up and put them in a large-ish bowl with the diced veggies and cilantro. Dash about 1/4 of your paprika on top of them.
In another, smaller bowl, mix the Miracle Whip lemon juice, salt, pepper and paprika together.
Combine the contents of the two bowls!
Mix until the egg bowl’s contents are generously coated in the Mayo bowl’s contents.
Then, serve on some delicious, toasted (in a toaster) marble rye and enjoy!
If you use this rad recipe, make sure props are given to Jim Gibbons and those who partake in your egg-cellent meal are sent to www.EnemyOfPeanuts.com straightaway!
I just checked my blog stats over at Nothing More American (my summer camp memoir blog)…
…and saw that search engine terms leading to my blog include “chubby young boys” and “dads and sons hazing.” I only got one hit for each, but I’m now hoping that there is a kindred soul in a former fat kid out there who found solace in my posts, but more than likely there is a huge f–king weirdo out there who just read about my camp experiences…yeah, the internet is a weird place.
If Disney animated theatrical releases can become Broadway musicals (i.e. “The Lion King”), then can Disney animated straight-to-dvd sequels become off-Broadway musicals (i.e. “The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride”)?
