The Big Two’s Big Ten

Ian: If you’re reading this, it means I am dead.
No, not dead! Thinking about next year’s comics!

Nuv: Dammit! Your first sentence had me loving this year already…

Ian: Sorry to disappoint, pisshole.
People told me I was crazy to think about comics in year 2010, but who’s crazy now? Here’s some business we’re looking forward to in the coming year…

Kimota backwards is…spelled wrong
Nuv: Marvelman – An old British Shazam rip-off revamped in the grim and gritty 80s by the creators of Watchmen and Sandman. Pitch-black back when dark comics were still shocking, this is also one of the few mega-influential comics I have yet to read due to ridiculous, convoluted legal nonsense. Marvel fixed all that with Mickey Mouse money, and now own the character. Even if the new stuff sucks, I should at least finally get to read the oldies when they inevitably re-issue them. Suck it, McFarlane!

F@#$ Red and Blue!
Ian: Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s looooong delayed Captain America: White. Apparently when issue #0 was released back in July of 2008, the book was nowhere near finished. After the teaser came out, Loeb and Sale got super busy working on Heroes and rumour has it Sale ran into some personal issues which further delayed the title. Anyway, it’s two years later and most of the issues are apparently in the bag. I hope this is true because I love Tim Sale and I really like the new style he’s trying out.

Brad and Angelina adopt Superhero’s son
Nuv: Battling Boy – Paul Pope should be a douche instead of the most innovative motherfucker in comics. Blending Kirby super-sci-fi, Japanese storytelling, European sensibilities and a distinctively New York attitude, he lives up to his name as the last, great ‘Pulp Hope.’ Battling Boy will have a 50. Fucking. Page. ‘Cinematic Fight Sequence’! Already optioned for film by Brad Pitt and Paramount and there hasn’t even been an issue yet.

Sunday Driver, yeah!
Ian: Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon’s Daytripper. Issue #1 came out at the start of December and I gotta say it’s one of the titles I’m most excited about right now. This is a work of passion for both artists, so it’s no surprise that the art is amazing and the opening stand-alone story has a decidedly sub-equatorial feel to it. For those who might not know, Ba and Moon are both from São Paulo, Brazil – there aren’t many comics set in South America, so you’re gonna see some things here you haven’t seen before.

The Original Big Two
Nuv: Superman vs Muhammad Ali – My two biggest heroes duked it out in the most coveted, epic oversized comic book from my childhood. This year DC is reprinting it in a giant hardcover format. I’mma buy that shit.

Ian’s Autobiography
Ian: (Fuck you Nuv.) Darwyn Cooke’s The Man with the Getaway Face / The Outfit. The second and third of the four Richard Stark novels Cooke is intending to adapt into graphic novels. His first kick at the can (Parker: The Hunter) came out in July of 2009 and basically tore everyone’s heads right off. Unfortunately, with Nuv, the end result didn’t stick…

Dracula to Nuv: Suck it
Nuv: Ian am funny. Me hope he live and no eat shit. Bizarro-Nuv no am excited with next pick: American Vampire – Stephen “Creep-o” King. Him do comic. Me am buy thems. Hello.

Explosivo issued restraining order
Ian: Whatever the hell Jamie McKelvie puts a pencil to next, I’m in. Seriously, I’ve been a fan of this guy since the first issue of Phonogram, right through his self-penned 4-issue Suburban Glamour, and straight into the work he’s been getting with Marvel. His heroes are great and all, but his girls are impossibly cute and that’s a huge selling point for people who enjoy comics with impossibly cute girls.

Marvel Does DC
Nuv: Nemesis –  By the team behind Old Man Logan (one of my Top 9 of ’09) and Civil War, not a whole lot is known, beyond a few teaser images and the basic premise (evil Batman-ish dude with Joker tendencies fucking shit up in the Marvel Universe). Sold.

DC Does Marvel
Nuv: Earth One – Taking a page from Marvel’s Ultimate line of comics, DC gives four stomp-ass writers and artists free reign to do what the crap they wants with their two biggest (and my favorite) characters. This is gonna go down easier than Ian in a roomful of sailors.

Oh yeah. It ain’t over, motherf@#$*rs
Ian: Um, seeing as Nuv’s thieving ass just stole the tenth pick, I’m gonna throw out some other stuff I’m almost as stoked about. More pin-up art from Adam Hughes; Andy Diggle’s continuing run on Daredevil; Lobster Johnson’s upcoming appearance in BPRD;  The end of Buffy: Season Eight; The reclaiming of Fabletown in Fables; More sweet goodness from J.H. Williams III; The poison I just stirred into Nuv’s pablum, etc. etc.

Nuv: And, since you just vomited six more things into our list of 10, what’s one more, right? Comic Book Movies. This would be a huge year just for Iron Man 2. We also get The Losers, Kick Ass, Jonah Hex, Green Hornet and Red. All of them actually look like they have a good shot at not sucking. Unlike gentleman/lady Ian.

Ian: Go to hell, Nuv.

Nuv: Since you’re here, I’m already there, old chum.

Put two in the air…

– The Big Two

NEXT ISSUE: THE GHOSTS OF SISKEL & EBERT HAUNT THIS COLUMN! (EBERT’S NOT DEAD…) YET! (THAT LOOKS LIKE ‘YETI’…) NOO!! IT’S ‘YET’ FOLLOWED BY AN EXCLAM…FUCK OFF!!!
TUNE IN: SAME IAN-TIME, SAME NUV-CHANNEL…