The Warren Report: 1-29-05

Before I go on and talk about a guy so cool he can get away with sitting in a pub typing on a Treo all day, a few Items of Interest:

-There's this guy, Mark, who's been posting on the ISB as of late. I went and checked out his blog, and it's pretty awesome. We've got a lot in common, right down to the links to Homestar Runner and X-Entertainment. Go give it a read, especially his "Comics I Shouldn't Own" series. There's fun for everyone! I like him because he likes the Karl Kessel Daredevil, and Melanie's considering breaking up with her secret lover for him because he likes Square games.

-Alan Moore was interviewed on a BBC radio show this week called "Chain Reaction." The concept is that the interviewee becomes the interviewer for the next show, so we've got two episodes to look forward to that feature the world's best comics writer. If you haven't heard it yet, go here and click on Chain Reaction. It's awesome, and it'll be up for another few days.

-Boston Legal Prequel Party is tomorrow night! We'll be viewing the last five episodes of the Practice in a boozy Shatner-and-Spader haze, and you can be a part of it. Visit Scott's Official BLPP website for details and tune in here tomorrow for the on-location ISB update.

-I read JLA Classified #3 and I want to kiss Grant Morrison on the mouth.

Which brings me, in a roundabout sort of way, back to Warren.

He's been on a roll this week with the Bad Signal. The guy simply cannot stop thinking about comics, which is what I love about him. A couple Signals were just full of stuff he was thinking about, and in the tradition of "The Explodo," he dropped a new term on us--Fight Comics. It's a great label for certain things, and the best part of this week's dispatches was that about three paragraphs after he coined the phrase, he became so amused with himself that he broke out in mid-thought and just wrote: "Fight comics. Heh." and then went right back into what he was talking about.

I've said it before, Warren's awesome.

The reason it made me think of JLA Classified is that those three issues are just that: Fight Comics. I've been told that G-Mo's doing a sort of "Western manga" style on JLA:C, so the book just hits the ground running and doesn't stop for three issues. To say it's action-packed is like saying the Great Wall of China has a few bricks in it. I mean, look at that cover. Batman's in imminent danger of being eaten by a super-gorilla. It's got the Ultramarines fighting Grodd, the Robot JLA fighting the Ultramarines, Grodd fighting Batman, Batman fighting the Ultramarines... It's senses-shattering. It's fight comics done right.

I've even seen Phil use the term over on Thinking Comics, which I think proves that it's one of those great phrases that's so useful we're going to wonder how we classified things like Orion #5 before it popped, reeking of booze, out of Warren's bearded head.

And that's the LEAST of great pearls o' wisdom we've gotten this week. Check these out (best read in a gruff English accent):

"The one issue of AUTHORITY I got hate mail on was, I believe, the third issue. The one where I stopped to explicate the plot (such as it was) and didn't use The Explodo. People passed on reviews which said, I swear to God, 'Has Ellis lost it?'"

"I have stolen planes from the needy. What a bastard I am."

Re: The last episode of Enterprise: "They could have just put a title card up for 44 minutes which read FUCK YOU FOR WATCHING. REGARDS, THE MGMNT."

And of course:

"Even a smart porn movie still has a come shot."

The man drops gems like he's got holes in his pockets, and STILL has time to have the Ultimate Fantastic Four sit around talking to each other for twenty-two pages each month.

What's not to love?