Courtesy of the STAR,
Madripoor got educated yesterday.
Imagine sitting in on a history in the making.
The voice of the rakyat matters!
Wow.
Lucky for us we are stuck in Madripoor.
Lucky for us we READ our history.
In 1987, Kampung Baru, a "show of force"
was demonstrated to the rakyat.
The voice of the rakyat matters?
History will only teach those who learnt their lesson.
** I got C4 for History.
The end of the species is near. Folks actually believe other folks who write about what other folks does, did, did not or will do. Folks actually read every lines from some other folks who writes about folks making statutory declaration. Folks actually follow every oaths that is taken by folks who respond to oaths made by some more other folks. Folks will read every new lines from some folks now that some folks have their lines interrupted. These same folks will continue dishing out lines to the other folks who will post them same lines to others who write about what other folks does, did, did not or will do. These same folks believe some folks are history. These same folks also believe some folks will make history.
a song for folks who gets excited with every soundbite
Gonna lose my way tomorrow,
gonna give away my car.
I'd take you along with me,
but you would not go so far.
Don't see what I do not want to see,
you don't hear what I don't say.
Won't be what I don't want to be,
I continue in my way.
Don't see, see, see where I'm goin',
Don't see, see, see where I'm goin',
Don't see, see, see where I'm goin' to,
I don't want to.
Everyday I see the mornin' come on in the same old way.
I tell myself tomorrow brings me things I would not dream today.
DON'T BELIEVE THE LIE
This classic of superior film craft will remain forever ban in Malaysia and the ass butt end of SIN. No GOV worth their national day message and economic sugar will ever want their rakyat to learn what this anime contained. First: Don't use C4. Second: Don't make oaths. Now why didn't they allow this to be screened for the special force goondu? Wanna start a revolution? Look and learn:
Essential viewing for politicians & special force corporals
Even animated-big-gun-totting-red-eyed-corporal with peace-mantra inclination knows how to waste unwanted female attention in a quiet way. And if you have to use your big gun, do it in the sewers. Don't want any attention from indians, petrans or gwo burne types right? I mean you can make a movie with your cell phone these days. I saw 4 she-punks the other day trying very hard to look Jap. They had their hair spiky-do and their dress elaborate pseudo-euro-gothic-chic-slut mix n match. I swear Boy George was incarnated. Anyway they just had to pose at the subway - apparently their fav location for handphone cosmovie shoot. Give these indie-sluts full cred for marketing genius. But will someone get out of the way? I am late for the train to Rawang! I mean Yishun. I mean Kelana Jaya. I mean Pasir Ris. I mean why can't they just watch Jin Roh and realized everthing is fake and just waiting to be blasted off the screen? Did I say the GOV banned this piece of superior film craft? Wanna start a revolution? Watch clip again.
Time was, we can invite these blokes back to Jeremiah for a drink after they filled up the screen looking mean. I mean extras, what do you expect from hourly wage? Heck, bet the armour weight is not worth the effort. But we can't start giving the yahoos ideas right? I mean it's bad enough we have desperados creating their own revolution when they zoom into town. I mean Lobo may be buddhist but he still kick the toilet door! Heck, Wolvie last heard was vegetarian but he would drink the pub dry before you say zucchini. And Punisher! The original has not been seen. But we have a heck of a con-artist wearing that tee part-timing as a bartender. Now, we can't start getting ideas into his head, no?
The Idiots Guide to making someone disappear without C4
Another day at Jeremiah... Madripoor is fine and busy this day. No stautory declaration needed here. Just make your peace and order your brew and if you can't handle your drink, go piss off. And die. Over here the only oath taking is on the tits of bartender. The one wearing the punisher tee. I swear no one will ever be tempted.
Moltmann is still bugging for small change. These germans can drink forever. Maybe that's why their theologee flows like a river. He went on stage in desperation and did a one act. A summa of the theology of the crucified god. the stage darkens. moltmann spoken word in one act:
"My God why hast thou forsaken me?"
(give that man a drink!!!)
MOLTMANN'S PLEA: the present day bourgeois christianity is seamless and has an answer for anything. here we are faced with a christianity in crisis. a christianity with a faith in a crucified god. a contradiction. a scandal. the abandonment of Jesus on the cross by God. the cross. the horror. the profane godlessness and horror of the cross. christian theology either get born here or flee. the cross of the crucified christ is really the most irreligious thing in christian faith. the cult of the modern day understanding of the cross, the unbloody repetition ad nauseam of the event at golgotha has all but changed this horrifying event into a theory for slavation. (no error in spelling) we have made the bitterness of the cross of Jesus Christ tolerable to ourselves by learning to understand it as a necessity of the process of salvation...as a result the cross loses its arbitrary and incomprehensible character. Hence what was unique, particular and scandalous in the death of Christ is not retained but suppresses and destroyed.
(give that man another drink...)
It can get heady here at Jeremiah sometimes. it's a crisis for those who still care and a curse for those who are condemned. Enter here those who weep.
In a Madripoor kinda of weird, Keith Green was on stage at Jeremiah tonight. This is space warp miles away from Hill-shite-songs. This is a cry from the heart. Even the bartender in the punisher tee was humming along...
a prayer at Jeremiah...
I return to HSDS once every year or so. Used to do it more often. I think it's still at least once a year (La Tey, correct me if I'm wrong). No, I don't dance. Much. It's just something to do with my mental development (or regression). So much of my values were formed by HSDS that it's odd to stay away for long. No, I don't dance. Much.
It's polling day at Permatang Pauh. This is, by far, the most exciting, violent and decisive by-election ever in Malaysian history. We've all heard the news - endless Quran-swearings, character assassinations, fluctuating fuel-prices, the ACA case, bomb scares, smearings, etc. A Little Taffer's got his own take on the whole thing with references to The Matrix and the Walls of Jericho. I read and smile. Not much different from reading the Daily Papers. Sometimes Jeremiah Blues make more sense than "objective reporting". Results will be out tonight. But I'm not exactly optimistic. We live in a world where A Little Taffer was mistaken to be Pltypus by some Accountant who claimed to know them both. You think voters can tell the difference between the candidates and what they stand for? 
Once the King of Petra coughed and soon they were soundbites all over the land... Soundbites is brought to you by a quiet little man inside a square, trying to make his way in the world.
If you are here, you're fucked.
I watched Ghost in the Shell and I want shades like Kusanagi!It's a lost cause. Time was, Matrix was the new Ghost in the Shell. And all the babes in town were dragging their geekboys to watch it twice. Every she-locals wants to be Trinity. Every stinkin one of them want to have shades like Trinity.
Mamoru Oshii, how you have failed. Only the madmen will watch Blade Runner and gush about your prophetic vision. Only the fanatics will watch Matrix, and recognize what was already envisioned in the landscape of Ghost in the Shell. Only lost souls will seek out Avalon and watched it like it is Ghost in the Shell all over again because Mamoru Oshii, you, directs. How you have failed...
Every stinking one of them wants shades like Trinity...
***
Sometimes you want to be alone. Sometimes you wished to be in a crowd. I do that sometimes. Just to be lost in the mass/mess of humanity. Just to get out of myself. So that no one can mis-educatedly labelled me angst. So sometimes I just want to sit in my corner at Jeremiah and watch some dvd. But sometimes these germans will just ask for spare change to buy a beer...
Something about germans. They have superior brew, they are often bearded and they stank. I swear it's the sauerkraut. Past historical posting lost in the archives have shown how a combination of all three factors led to irreconcilable theology with those reformed colonial ass lickers. Some SIN people just have something for colonial orifices and its no rocket science how La Tey hs been infected with his rear end courier services. But I digress, back to the germans. Moltmann asked for spare change for a drink. I bought him Shandy. He told me that above and beyond all useless meta-definitons is the theological foundation resting in the raising of the crucified Christ. From this centre one is inescapably reminded of the cross of the risen Christ. Whatever can stand before the face of the crucified Christ is true christian theology. What cannot stand there must disappear. Moltmann eye his Shandy suspiciously and insist this is especially true of what we say about God. And we have seen and heard much about God these days, meta-reformed or otherwise, I added. Moltmann ignored me and reminded that Christ died on the cross with a cry of abandonment. The cry of abandonment is either the end of every theology and religion or it is the beginning of a truly christian theology. Most theologians are exposed as Job's friends. (i wonder aloud if Job's friends wear white coat with an obvious bible hidden in the pocket...) They want to produce an answer to the question about God with which Christ dies. But Christ dies with an open question, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" A truly christian theology has to make Jesus experience of God on the cross the centre and foundation of all our ideas about God. Moltmann sat down. I ordered him a real brew. Maybe I can call La Tey to drink with this german? Maybe I can persuade that new bartender with the Punisher t-shirt to fry some sausages and whip up some sauerkraut? Maybe. Meanwhile there was heard a soundbite from the toilet... (Najib is finished!)
A theology which did not speak of God in the sight of one
who was abandoned and crucified would have nothing to say to us then.
Finished Ian Fleming's "Thunderball" during my lunch break earlier today. Got the above Centenary Edition hardback with the painted cover. This novel is one of Fleming's most action-packed with Bond going after Emilio Largo who was planning to blow up Miami with an atomic weapon. It is also the first part of the "Blofeld Trilogy" featuring SPECTRE. Bond doesn't really run into Blofeld in this novel but his defeat of Largo is a prelude to their epic struggles in later stories such as "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and "You Only Live Twice". Bond again teamed up with the American Felix Leiter and romanced the lovely Domino, who was cruelly tortured by Largo towards the end of the book. The main draw of the book is definitely the underwater fights. Fleming was obsessed with diving at this point and the prose descriptions of the underwater wonders are among the most breathtaking in the English language. There were two movie adaptations of "Thunderball" both starring Sean Connery (the second one was "Never Say Never Again"). Of the two movie adaptations, the earlier one is far more accurate and is still a joy to watch after all these years. The latter one is a total piece of crap - imagine Bond and Largo playing video games, Domino doing aerobics, etc.
Everyone has a blog these days. My Intensive Class students happened to have their own blogs. Most of them are pretty interesting too. Do check them out:
without rules®ulations people get confused
Time was, Chinese novels were printed on toilet-paper with B-grade water-colour paintings for a cover. Everyone from the "Bak-Chang" uncle at the pasar-malam to the taxi-drivers along Jalan Hugh Low could read them. Time now, you had large-print hardcovers with variant covers depicting pugilistic heroes drawn to look like Taiwanese boy-bands. Problem was, people stopped reading. The books no longer fed the imagination of the masses or inspired them to greater things. The books are now collector's items. Bought but hardly read. Used to be you could rent these things (or sometimes steal them) from 2nd-hand bookshops. Me? I'm looking for a weekend buried under tons of Chinese pulp. Maybe find my Oriental soul again..... ?!?
Eat shit and die.One reason why communications fail is because there's too much talking. Too much reasoning. Too much impressing. Too much meaning. Too much jamming. Too much soup. There's too much talking and too little understanding.
www.freakangels.com
potrait of tuition teacher as gaiman
Portrait of La Tey as liberatedI asked Bilal to unravel the enigma of La Tey. He drew a scarf blood red and billowing in the wind. He drew the liberation of flight. He almost re-imagined the son of Krypton but reveal one going against the wind. Is it one going forward then? Is it one held back? Is it one with great determination to go against the wind? Is it one drawn to be hindered by the blood red scarf instead? There is only the silence the scarf held with no sound uttered but only the partial answer of a face with the eyes closed.
I asked Bilal if he will drew me from a distance. He obliged. I stood outside the hotel ready to depart. He captured me in transition. Sometimes that is all I can be.
MEMORIES. Time was life was lived in struggle. Time now, life can be effortless.
There's a world painted by Bilal that shows people desperately wanting power. Power to control. To control whatever little that is left to control, like controlling the robots that served their daily means. People will cling on to that. That power that give them reason for being. Over a few miserable scrap of metal and wires you say? People will cling on to anything for the fiction of being in power. When the world is a badly painted ochre of decay, Bilal shows that people will desperately want power.
It's a small world in the sci-fi of Bilal. Only our fantasy make them large. It's a small world that enagage our attention, it's only our ignorance that narrow our focus to the vastness of space out there.
Meanwhile, the path that spirals is one that is tread on.
In space no one can hear you scream.
"Jeremiah Blues" exist. It's somewhat like "Fight Club". Only "Lite"-er, decaffeinated, detoxed and Rated-PG (parents-need-guidance). Much of Jeremiah Blues doesn't make sense to anyone outside the Inner Circle of this insidious fraternity (truth be told, much of it doesn't even make sense to the Inner Circle of this insidious fraternity). Therefore, if you don't find anything useful here, please just move on. Go check out Hollywood Babylon if you're interested in porn. There's no porn here. In fact, the Inner Circle is very anti-porn because we once did a study on how it had zero effect in encouraging Pandas to copulate. Now, panda-extinction is a very real issue and panda-porn used to be presented as the cure for the apparent lack of sexual interest among the cuddly bears. Apparently, it had about as much effect as Jack Black's animated feature had in encouraging pandas to take up kung-fu! But for some reason, some weird SIN fundy (usually going by stupid Latin-sounding names like Vincit) actually think that there's a lot of porn here. There's no use reasoning with SIN fundies. They are even less sexually interesting that panda-porn. Anyway, my point is this: if you've had a healthy childhood playing Nintendo, watching Cartoon Network and fantasizing about aborted foetuses, then you'll probably find little here to interest you. In fact, you may even find Jeremiah Blues rather confusing. Some people actually said that we're writing/posting utter rubbish here. Not too far from the truth, I must admit. But then, so was James Joyce...
Last Saturday was an actual off-line, in-the-stinking-flesh gathering of the Inner Circle of the Jeremiah Blues fraternity. Aside from the usual discussions on the aesthetic qualities of European artists against the conveniently-sequential kitsch of American ones, we also ordered an indecent amount of food like normal, ordinary human beings. [Melvin provided the sound bites.] In other words, we had "dim-sum" at a local restaurant while talking about the state of local politics, history, art, philo-loco-sophy, theo-loco-gy and other really deep, introspective shit by the usual gang of idiots. [Melvin provided the sound bites.] The interesting thing about the live-meeting (performance?) was that if any casual bystander stood by and listened in, he/she would have absolutely no idea what we were talking about at all. Never mind that. Most of the time, we couldn't even understand what we ourselves were talking about. [Melvin provided the sound bites.] La Tey was fast asleep after the 20th hour. Pltypus and I were still going on and on and on. We ran out of topics and actually went into therapy (with Pltypus charging RM80 a pop). [Melvin provided the sound bites.] Shesha smoke was in the air, in our lungs and in our heads. That kept us awake. The shesha-man gave a lecture on how the shesha-pipe worked. We should probably invite him to chair future Jeremiah-meetings. Nobody could understand a word he said!!! But we all nodded in agreement anyway. [Melvin provided the sound bites.] My point (and I do have one) is this, the Inner Circle of the Jeremiah Blues fraternity is identical in real-life as they are in blog-life. Deep and nonsensical at the same time. But then, so was James Joyce.....
In some ways, Jeremiah Blues was about the struggle for independence. We had our little Boston Tea Party and decided that enough was enough. Some centuries down the line, historians will pore over every word that we've written down here and conclude that we were right in the midst of a revolution - heck, that our names will forever be linked to the greatest revolution ever in human history. But that is to be expected. Uncle Screwtape was said to have memorized "Ecce Homo" on his way to the school lavatory one day when he was in Primary Three. As for La Tey, he was said to have discovered the truth behind all existence in some weird S&M ritual involving a hammerhead-shark in latex and an electric-drill customized according to the diameter of one of his orifices that I will refrain from mentioning lest I offend the sensibilities of some of our more tender readers. As for Pltypus, he saw the light after the 58,239th viewing of "The Deer Hunter" and "Blade Runner" side-by-side on his TV screen and notebook LCD screen. It was said that his experience was akin to an epiphany and he finally figured out the real motives behind Rutger Hauer's mysterious actions saving Han Solo at the end of the movie. Pltypus was last seen sitting silently below the Virgin (probably the only Lady that could make him shut up). As for Melvin? Well, he provided the sound bites and we all love him for that. I don't know about James Joyce. I was told that he once made some list that provided him instant Nirvana. The list went something like that:Stephen
Dublin
Ireland
World
Universe
God
Universe
World
Ireland
Dublin
Stephen
Wanna join up?
Jeremiah Blues is open for enrollment.
So you say you want a revolution?
HIPPOS IN KL
"I am the lizard king, I can do anything" Where there's total freedom to be, there's no guilt in being. (Jim Morrison, The Doors.) I used to read the free expression of the rock shaman and played THE END with all the lights out. Letting images of the subconscious encroach the waking reality of the darkened room. All juvenile stuff from the imaginations of a youth liberated from the chains of structured learning. When you are young and stupid, anything is permissible. When one become older with ageing and regulations, the limits are more thickly drawn. Structured behavior began with the age of education. One learns to step in line and follow the classroom decorum. One learn the syllabus and follow the instructions. One come under the figures of authority who implant following behavior. One become the crowd who follows. One learn guilt. One become sin conscious. One dies.
So every now and once comes a Morrison who defies convention and awakens a passion once forgotten. Dukes knows passion unbridled. La Tey is a walking sperm donor. Warlock is just waiting to ejaculates. (He just need to find the right soundbites.) Beyond the appearance of farce, Walt Disney's Fantasia explodes on the wide screen. Most of us were still wet in the nose but who can forget the dancing hippos with their tu-tus? History was written on that day. One, classical music is cool. Two, fantasy need not just be dragon and dungeons. Three, hippos do dance. Go ahead, let the shaman feed your dreams. While Dukes waltzes his way into hippo-fantasia-ballroom-arkana. (If Dukes can appear as the punisher, it's not difficult to imagine Dukes in pink tu-tus.)
The tuition teacher once known as the punisher now re-imagined as a hippo in tu-tus
EPILOGUE: It still pisspouring outside.
Teenagers with problems. Teenagers with superpowers that set them apart from the rest of humanity - thus amplifying their problems to the Nth-degree. Sounds familiar? If you've grown up reading "X-Men" (like me), it should and Brian Wood knows that. Wood takes the best of the teenage-angst of Claremont's malfunctioned mutant teenagers and recycles them into 12 short-stories elegantly illustrated by Becky Cloonan into a book called "Demo". The result is not a comic or even a graphic novel (I hate that pretentious nomenclature). It works and feels like an alt musical album with 12 tracks, each one illustrating a particular emotion: acceptance, support, loneliness, escape, lust, love, pain, etc. I read "Divided We Stand" two weeks ago and that was something like that (vignettes or snapshots of characters) but without the magic of Cloonan's art. Cloonan channels the best of Paul Pope, Frank Miller and Guy Davis with a mixture of manga into her work, creating a deeply personal album to cherish for many, many years and rereads to come. By the end of the book, I was screaming: "Mum, when I grow up, I want to marry Becky Cloonan!" Well, not exactly in those words but you get the point... :)
Some years back, I saw this Hong Kong movie called "Ebola Syndrome". It was Anthony Wong at his sickest and most perverse. "Human Pork-Chop Buns" was nothing compared to this classic of cinematic gore and exploitation. It left me shivering. The horror wasn't just limited to the sick acts of one demented individual. The horror was that I was sharing the world with sick fucks like this. Now, before you go sniggering at my naivety, all that was pre-"Hostel", pre-"Saw" and long before I discovered sicker fucks who post pictures of aborted foetuses on their blogs in order to make put forth a moral argument. But that was that. Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was this tiny shit-of-an-excuse-for-a-TPB called "Bad World" by Warren Ellis. During my saner (more sanctified?) days in Ipoh, I discovered the single issues but did not buy them. Yesterday, I browsed through the miscellany handed to La Tey by Pltypus and discovered this buried treasure (or travesty, depending on my state of mind at the moment). Pltypus called it "bits and pieces of a work in progress culminating in Crooked Little Vein". I believed him (although I put forth my usual look suggesting intellectual-skepticism). He was right, as usual (and don't ask for the 80 bucks this time, ok?). "Bad World" was a cheap exercise wherein Ellis dumped in all the stuff that a writers' notebook of research contains with nary a thread to tie them all together into a cohesive narrative. It's not a story so much as it is a shopping list of weirdness. Garth Ennis probably owns the same writers' notebook but he at least bothered to write cohesive storylines with engaging characters around his weird-shit (e.g. "Preacher"). Not so with Ellis. Ellis was running an e-mail self-promotion campaign ("Bad Signal" - another Avatar TPB), an online site (again for self-promotion), writing endless self-promoting essays ("From The Desk Of..." - another Avatar TPB) while flirting shamelessly with the superhero-publishing companies (read: Marvel/DC) that he supposedly abhors. Ellis is, first and foremost, a businessman. And the product that he sells is, simply, himself. He noticed the cult following of other writers like Alan Moore and Grant Morrison and set himself up to be just such a comic-guru. This is not meant to be a criticism. In fact, it's a long tradition in the literary business. Robert Heinlein comes to mind. So does Clive Barker, Robert Ludlum and countless others. Hacks who pattern themselves after greater writers. When speaking to fans of indies, Ellis trumpets his hatred for the superhero-monoliths of Marvel/DC (all the while explaining that the paychecks he receives from them were to finance his forays into indie-publishing). When speaking to fans of the superhero genre, Ellis maintains that he's only trying to take the book/concept further than was previously thought possible and/or writing a homage to great imaginative writers of the past. Don't believe him. It's all about money to buy stuff for his girlfriends so that he'd get to bone them. Once again, nothing inherently wrong or immoral about all that. Back to "Bad World". It's a writer's notebook culled from years of research into manic-obsessive idiots we share the world with (religious nuts, serial killers, cannibals, lizard-fuckers, insane scientists, politicians, etc.) pretending to be a comic. The illustrator of this piece, Jacen Burrows, does all the work illustrating some random notes that Ellis tossed his way. Avatar publishes it and made some money from Ellis' rabid fans. For Ellis, it was free money anyway. He didn't even need to think up this stuff. Throw the notebook to an artist and Avatar will publish it. Avatar publishes anything anyway. It's not as if they're trying to achieve any modicum of respect here. Remember the sex-and-gore shit they published in the 1990s ("Faust", "666", "Razor", etc.)? Heck, they were the ones who made the nude-variant covers into collector's items! Avatar is like the most overused whore working the street corners for scraps under the table. "Bad World" is one such scrap under Warren Ellis' table. Avatar took it, licked it clean, slapped it between two colourful covers and it ends up in my fat, grubby hands. Having said all that, I must admit that it is an intriguing read. It's not exactly a comprehensive conspiracy theory in the David Icke manner but maybe that's why it works. Ellis doesn't try to sell us a system of beliefs about alien reptiles invading earth and disguising themselves as "the powers that be". Nope. He simply gives us snapshots of weird fucks all over the world who tries to clone Jesus from the Turin Shroud, eats their French girlfriends and fucks Godzilla. Then he reminds us that this is OUR world. Not the world that we read about in the news or watch in mainstream movies certainly. But real nevertheless. It's stuff like this that reminds me why I've always hated the naivety of songs like Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World". It's a Bad World. We share this Bad World with these sick fucks. Some of these sick fucks end up as political leaders who blow up dead bodies or are addicted to sodomy. Some end up calling for a war against "evil nations", "evil ideologies" and "evil leaders". Some end up as religious leaders. Some write blogs and post up pictures of aborted foetuses while welcoming the IMF to fuck their nations in the ass. It's a Bad World and maybe Stryfe the Chaos-Bringer was right. Let's blow these motherfuckers to kingdom-come, let God sort them all out and reboot the world. But I digress. In the end, it's only a comic. Intriguing, nonetheless, but still a badly written one published by a whore of a publisher. This is why I prefer reading "Cable And The New Mutants" .....
"New Mutants" was created by Chris Claremont in the 1980s to introduce the next generation of mutant students at Xavier's. It was a sweet little book that fans liked - somewhat like an answer to the ever-darkening teen-heroes of Marv Wolfman's (post-"Judas Contract") "Titans" over at DC. Aside from some experimental art by Bill Sienkiewicz (another Pltypus-favourite), it was a title that tried too hard to go against the grim-and-gritty waves flooding 80s/90s comics. In short, it was a title that was destined to fail in the long run. Then Marvel had an inspiration. DC's "Titans" had Deathstroke the Terminator (known to kids today as "Slade" because of the cartoon) so we'll darken the "New Mutants" title with "The Man Called CABLE!!" (the two exclamation points are infinitely important from the standpoint of literature, as you'll soon realize). Enter: ROB LIEFELD and the infamous cover above: New Mutants #87. It was inked by then rising-star Todd McFarlane, who'd go on to greater success on "Spider-Man", "Spawn" and slews of violent action-figures. Liefeld, on the other hand, went on to even greater financial success (and infamy) with "X-Force", "Youngblood", "Bloodsport", countless other books with "Blood" or "Die" or "Kill" in their titles, the Heroes Reborn "Captain America", "Supreme", some Biblical books (or should that be "unbiblical books"?), some stuff involving Will Smith's wife and the Backstreet Boys, legal battles with Marvel over "Fighting American", and err... Levi's Jeans! But he was doomed to never exceed the artistic-excellence (?!?) that he once achieved on "New Mutants #87". Hence, like all other one-hit wonder rockstars, he'd return again and again and again to it, remixing it sometimes, rehashing it at other times...
Take for example, the cover above. "Youngblood #5" was actually the fifth issue of the relaunched series - probably the second or the third such relaunches. By then, Liefeld had largely abandoned his Image books - he was having law-suits with BOTH Marvel and Image at the same time. Probably his only joy was getting an opportunity to draw "Captain America" despite the fact that even that work was largely panned by critics. Around that time, Liefeld contributed the cover above. It was meant as a homage - a parody even - of the original cover he did for "New Mutants #87". This time with a Cable-lookalike called "Jeriko" (I don't remember anything else about the character). "Jeriko" was really another Cable-lookalike in a long string of duplicates during the 1990s. Characters with shiny limbs, eyes, lined-constipated faces and gigantic guns were on every cover of every title anyway! In time, Liefeld returned to do another run on "Cable" (by "run", I really mean 2-3 issues), another run on "Wolverine" (again, I really mean 1-2 issues), a complete run on a "Cable and X-Force" miniseries (this time, he did the whole thing with partner-in-crime Fabian Nicieza), covers for the "Shatterstar" mini (by his friend Marat Mychaels - Liefeld was co-plotter), covers for "Cable/Deadpool" (by Fabian Nicieza) and the "Onslaught Reborn" mini (with Jeph Loeb, his former partner at "Awesome").
The latest rehash/remix of "New Mutants #87" is the above "Marvel Apes Variant Cover" for "Cable #6" (another relaunch of the character/title after the cataclysmic events of "Messiah Complex" with no involvement so far from Liefeld aside from the above cover). Can anyone say "Constipated Apes"??? Hahaha! I love Rob's work. I also love his self-deprecating humour (nobody laughs at Rob Liefeld's work more than Rob himself - honest!). I love his in-your-face artwork and his constant self-parodies. Pick up a Rob Liefeld comic for some honest-to-God fun and action. No need for social/political commentaries or lit.crit. analyses. Enjoy... :)
