A Boss Called Kev #4

"Black Friday"

The action figure situation at Paper Heroes has spiralled out of control. With a big sale scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving, Corey decides to give Kev one last chance, but even at 15% off they are unable to significantly reduce the inventory, and still more cases are on the way. As the overstock reaches critical mass, Corey realizes that his boss must be stopped... by any means necessary. Hoping to make Kev's death a happy one, Corey hires Jennifer Connelly -- a skilled ninja assassin -- and instructs her to kill his boss before he completes the monthly Diamond Previews order.

Will Kev survive? Once he sees Jennifer Connelly in person, will he even attempt to defend himself?

For a little background on why I repeatedly photoshop my boss onto comic book covers, click here. Or, to see the rest of the Kev covers on Flickr, click here.

Dog the Bounty Hunter Broke My Nunchuks

Halloween Party
Originally uploaded by roadkillbuddha.

Halloween 2006 Recap: After not doing much in the past few years to celebrate the only holiday that I can really get behind, I was happy when my boss Kevin announced a Halloween Party for Saturday night, giving me a reason to get a costume together.

Of course, chronic procrastinator that I am, Saturday afternoon rolled around and I was still trying to think of something to dress up as. Knowing I had the makings for about half a ninja costume, I'd been trying to think of something funny and incongruous to combine it with. Themes I considered were Pirate Ninja, Clown Ninja, Office Ninja (like an Office Linebacker, but more lethal), Homeless Ninja ("Will Kill For Food"), or even NASCAR Ninja (but all of the NASCAR jerseys we sell at the store are WAY too expensive, especially considering that I'd never wear any of them ever again under any circumstance).

Finally, while walking through Wal-Mart, I spotted the rack of orange safety vests, and Safety Ninja was born. Nothing says "stealth" like a glow-in-the-dark orange vest. And while Safety Ninja easily bested Zorro in a sword fight, he was no match for Dog the Bounty Hunter, hence the title of this blog entry.

While the Halloween party on Saturday night was a lot of fun, Halloween Night was a bit of a let down. I wore my costume to work, but needn't have bothered, as I think we averaged about one customer per hour for the duration of my shift. And an accident involving an 18-wheeler and power lines that afternoon had left the store without cable TV. So I'm sure I was a pathetic sight yesterday... a 37-year-old comics geek in a ninja costume, sitting alone in a comics shop for hours on end, bored out of my mind. And the situation when I got home was eerily similar, as I went from having no customers to no trick-or-treaters. (Oh well, I guess I'll just have to haul all the leftover candy down to the store... what a shame).

But I did celebrate the holiday by finally watching my SLiTHER DVD last night. A truly funny and twisted horror movie with a number of great performances, it will definitely be one that I watch again and again.

So remember kids, be safe on Halloween. Don't die by accident... wait for a ninja to kill you.

A Boss Called Kev

This morning I was going to get started on a new writing project, but since I was waiting for an email from the client, I decided to kill some time blogging about zombies and photoshopping my boss Kevin Cinquemano's face onto another cover or two of A Man Called Kev. Because, you know, I'm all about productivity.

Honestly, his name is Kevin, he owns a comics shop, it had to be done.

The real fun is printing them out on glossy photo paper, wrapping them around actual comics, then bagging and boarding them and putting them on display in the store. Because invariably some percentage of the customers will believe they're real, and their reactions tend to range from, "Wow, that really, really looks like Kevin, how weird," to "How did Kevin get his own comic book?"

Sometimes I'll slap a price tag and a "Variant Edition" sticker on the bag. Yes, I take pleasure in the gullibility and/or ignorance of others. It's just one of the many retail survival skills I've learned over the years.

Larger versions can be found on Flickr.

Recycled Trek

Spike TV runs 3 hours of Star Trek: The Next Generation every weekday, providing background noise for my afternoon shifts at Paper Heroes. I have no idea how many times they've cycled through the entire series over the past few months, but I've learned to dread the arrival of the (excellent) series finale "All Good Things...", the harbinger that signals the imminent return of season one.

Case in point: Yesterday I was subjected to episode 4, "The Last Outpost," an inferior remake of the Classic Trek episode "Arena." Not only is this "update" of the first contact scenario a muddled mess of a story, especially in contrast to the starkly elemental nature of the original, but let's compare the 2 episodes' legacies. Because simply evaluating their individual contributions to the Trek mythos demonstrates that they are on opposite ends of the quality spectrum:

"Arena" introduced the Gorn, the most awesome alien in the Star Trek universe, while "The Last Outpost" was our introduction to the Ferengi, by far the most irritating.

Worse yet, while the Gorn made their point in one episode and then were never seen again (not counting their appearance on the non-canonical Star Trek: The Animated Series, or that CGI monstrosity on Star Trek: Enterprise), the Ferengi would never stay away, instead returning for countless appearances throughout Next Generation's run, each more grating than the one before, and collectively having a negative impact on the quality (and my enjoyment) of the series as a whole.

Coincidentally, I fulfilled a childhood dream on Saturday when I stumbled upon an action figure clearance sale at Suncoast, and purchased the Gorn figure by Art Asylum... for a dollar. Sure, when I was a kid in the '70s I had the Mego Star Trek dolls, but was never able to locate the elusive Gorn (which apparently was a Frankensteinian creation combining the head of Marvel Comics' The Lizard, a Planet of the Apes body, and a Klingon costume). Of course this was back in the Dark Ages when you actually had to go store-to-store and search the shelves. You kids today with your eBay -- where's the challenge? The frustration? The heartbreak?

Anyway, check out this kickass Gorn action figure. Is there any doubt it could beat the snot out of an entire starship full of Ferengi action figures, using nothing but its bare hands, a medium-sized boulder, or a makeshift dagger? And all he'd be wearing is that flimsy tunic, because the Gorn is like the Star Trek Universe version of the Sub-Mariner, who you always just knew was a badass because he'd routinely fight giant monsters, robots, and aliens wearing nothing but swim trunks.

Final note: Your "Arena" or Mine is an interesting blog post by John Kenneth Muir about the history of Frederic Brown's short story "Arena," first published in Astounding Science Fiction Magazine in 1944, and since adapted into episodes of, not only Star Trek and The Next Generation, but also The Outer Limits, Space: 1999, Blake's 7, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. It's a classic story (I wish I could remember where I read it so that I could find it again), and it's interesting to see how the basic concept evolved over time.