PSA

I'd really like to see one of those science podcasts or upworthy articles do a segment on all the commands available to your computer only when your touchpad is activated and you're not trying to do them. For example, brushing your palm against the touchpad while responding to a FB comment will open up only the transsexual porn sites in your browser history while members of your family are just walking into the room.

Now you know and knowing is half the battle when it comes to not having to explain to your mom that Moldovian Chicks with Dicks dressed as space pirates isn't so much my thing but a passing interest between 'Slutty Librarians with Handguns' and 'Anime Napoleonic Cosplay Hotties'.

So today's haul from the pull box included some favorites:

After Life With Archie - I don't normally visit Riverdale but when I do it's at the checkout aisle of the supermarket. But if you add zombies, well consider my curiosity piqued. Thinking I'd be getting a gimmicky laugh ala Archie Meets the Punisher what I found instead was one of the best zombie themed stories I've run into in any medium. What's great is you know these characters but you've never seen them written this well before which gives the ensuing horror some real punch.

Walking Dead - Haters will eat up a buzz telling you how much they hate the show and when you tell them, hold up man, why don't you read the graphic novels then I mean sure there's no Daryl but everything else you're bitching about is taken care of in them, they just look at you all blank eyed and shrug. For me the comic is more Cormac McCarthy than the show's George Romero and make no mistake I love Romero but it's the McCarthy that made me a fan.

Rover Red Charlie - It's a simple tale of three canine friends on a heartwarming and gruesomely hilarious road trip across the world after it's ended. Think Watership Down with dogs instead of rabbits and then imagine that back-dropped across the apocalypse. But before you go all 'shut and take my money' let me warn you that this is a Garth Ennis book which means there are some sequences not for the squeamish.

Hawkeye - The problem with the Watchmen movie, to me at least, is the same one you would've had whether it was Zack Snyder, Terry Gilliam, Ridley Scott or James Cameron. The Watchmen was designed to be if not the pinnacle of sequential art story telling, then at least a celebration of it (via a very down and dirty deconstruction of the 'men in tights' genre) and as such the charms of the story don't translate the same cinematically. The joy I get out of Hawkeye is similar replacing the doom and gloom atmosphere of the Watchmen with what vibes like a mod heist movie featuring my childhood and still favorite Avenger - a dude with a bunch of arrows hanging out with gamma irradiated monster men and thunder gods. Fast, funny and clever with an understanding of the medium in which it is told that would make a Scott McCloud scholar nod with appreciation. A superhero comic for folks who don't like superheroes as well as those who love them.

Uncanny Avengers - There's something like, I don't know, fifty X-Men & Avengers comics being put out every month. What makes this one special? Well for one thing it takes everything I loved about the two franchises from the pre-Secret Wars Marvel Universe to get down to the basic core of both series. A superpowered allegory for the struggles of civil rights for all in the American dream along with the premise of a bunch of your favorite heroes banding together to fight those foes no single hero could fight. It's almost like a how to write big franchise superhero comics in a manner that makes me feel like an 11 year old again.

Forever Evil - This one's strictly a guilty pleasure for me. For you non-geeks the premise is simple. Like the Star Trek episode 'Mirror, Mirror', there is a universe where Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman et all are evil summabitches and usually intent on invading our earth in search of either a few quick laughs or to survive a cosmic multiverse eating creature or both. The premise with Forever Evil is with Evil versions of what you might call 'Super Friends' running our planet and the JLA out of commission who can save us now but... Lex Luthor and a 21st century reimagining of the Legion of Doom. So, no, it ain't 'Maus' or 'Love & Rockets' but it makes the little kid in me who thought he would grow up to be a cross between Salvador Dali and Lex Luthor smile gleefully.

Or maybe that's just the weed speaking. Anyway I'm not a comic journalist but I'd say for non superhero fans check out the first three on my list (especially horror fans) and if you dig big dumb fist fights intermingled with mutant or parallel universe laced drama then check out the others.

All right I'm done stinking up the joint with my nerdom... back to you LJ: