Loaded Bible:Book I

I found Loaded Bible Book I: The 'Jesus VS. Vampires' Gospels in my local comic book shop a week ago. My eyes locked onto the cover and I saw "Jesus V. Vampires" from across the room...it was like a scene out of Chariots of Fire. Angelic music tickles off stage and just a little extra light shown down from the florescent lights, illuminating the cover. It seemed to me as if time slowed down and as my feet shuffled excitedly across the linoleum it felt like I was moving at light speed towards my destiny.

I must admit, I had never heard of this before I saw the collected volume in the store. The series originally came out annually between 2006-2008. The back cover lists the book as "An Action Packed Sacrilegious Satire." I admit I felt slightly worried when I read that: I don't really care for blatant satire all that much, mainly because it tends to be a bit top-heavy in the story and is rarely worth the 15$ I'll spend to read it.

As I flipped through the book in the store however, I appreciated the art, the smattering of gore and some good old fashioned violence that I saw inside. These facets mollified me enough to want to give it a chance and I carried the tome to the register and cried "wrap it up!"

Inside I found some wonderful things, the first of which being: Jesus isn't lame...he is hardcore. I enjoy religion in comic books, especially when someone intelligent realizes that when you make fun of something you should at least write it well. But Seeley isn't really making fun of Jesus, which is the best part. He's making fun of everything else.

Jesus is to post-apocalyptic Earth like Batman is to Gotham. He's what is needed, not what is wanted. He is strong and smart and hard-core while being kind, faithful in God and a good person. He kills the evil vampires with such strength and prowess (and not to mention entirely satisfying blood and guts associated with a giant claymore/cross sword) that it really does a credit to the Christian faith that he's been given a license to kill. Totally awesome.

Then there is the story. It's actually good, well-rounded and funny. This isn't just a Wyatt Earp fantasy with Jesus inserted with a smattering of "we'll make fun of the stupid Jesus people har har."  The story doesn't make fun of Christianity by calling it names and pulling it's hair; it points out what Christianity really is about: having faith in humanity and in God. And its funny! Funny not because it's Jesus doing what he's doing but because Jesus is actually funny!

The plot revolves around a post-apocalyptic Jesus and his fight to rid the world of the evil vampires that have taken over.  It's a futuristic, wild-west vampires vs. humans shoot-em up with a message. It's even got some romance (covered in blood of course) and a perfectly evil bad-guy and a really good twist half-way through. It's not too slow, not to fast, easy to follow and not boring at all.

I'm really quite proud of Tim Seeley for writing this the way he did. He could have gone a completely different way and ruined the whole thing, but the way Jesus has been represented didn't insult me at all. It made me smile and be proud that my God could be modernized so appropriately.

It's totally worth the money I paid for it and I'll probably read it again after I publish this post. Awesome to the extreme. Go Jesus!

Tactical Tuesday: Assault Rifle

It's Tactical Tuesday!

Today's topic is......Assault Rifle!

Okay. Let's be honest with ourselves....I am female (that me!)

My Y chromosomal deficit automatically means I don't know as much as one should about ballistic weapons. But never fear my future as a librarian relies on my ability to research. So I have spent a number of hours doing the necessary workload to select the best assault rifle I could for slaughtering legions of the undead.

Now I know what you're thinking....(because its the same thing I think whenever I hear gun-people talking) "all rifles are 'assault' rifles. What else do you use a rifle for? What makes a rifle an 'assault rifle'?"

An Assault Rifle must have four characteristics
1. A buttstock (that thing that goes into your shoulder)
2. Selective fire (semi-auto, automatic etc)

3. Cartridge stronger than pistol/handgun and smaller than a battle rifle

4. Magazine that detaches

Cross referencing these characteristics with my own Zombie Apocalypse requirements I have decided to spotlight the.......

FN SCAR-L MK-16 or MK-16S (the latter is the civilian-legal version, I love you America)

Why I chose it:

1) Cartridge This weapon uses the 5.56X45mm NATO round, a standard cartridge for NATO countries meaning there are a lot of guns that use them and a lot of these cartridges laying around, a very important characteristic to remember when contemplating a zombie apocalypse. It's important to remember that once the world comes crashing down around our ears they will probably stop making bullets after a while, so it'll be important to not have a weapon that's picky. Also, the 5.56X45mm round has a tendency to fragment upon impact, extremely useful when shooting an undead creature in the skull in order to explode its evil infected gray matter. (This also is useful in stopping very live and uninfected hostiles trying to steal from and/or murder you. The bullets has considerable stopping power in piercing soft tissues, piercing 15mm into flesh. Think Mad Max meets SOCOM.) These cartridges are also easy to buy on the Internet or locally (I live in the South, I checked my local gun shop and of course they sell these cartridges*rolls eyes*).

2.Accuracy and Reliability This weapon is exceptionally accurate. Every review I've read (thank you again America for your awesomely loose gun restrictions) depicts this weapon as accurate to a fault. The weapon also has a low rate of failure: feeding, firing, extracting and ejecting reviews all are positive and have very few complaints.

3.Construction
The weapon is very modifiable and can be made to suit each user's individual needs.The weapon has a Picatinny Rail (pic above right)for an optical sight and other rails suitable for all kinds of goodies like lasers, lights, bipods etc---all extremely useful when living under the law of the gun in a post-apocalyptic atmosphere (imagine shooting zombies from 500 meters with a nice scope teehee--I always liked being a Sniper in Resident Evil 5). The buttstock is adjustable (I have short arms) and also folds for easy transport (or fighting your way through an undead mob in a confined space). The buttons and controls on the weapon are all conveniently placed and easily located (makes it easy to pick up and use, if you need to hand the weapon off to a less experienced user).  The weapon uses the same STANAG magazine that the M16 uses (among the roughly 30 other weapons that use this magazine style); this means it will be easier to accumulate ammunition as the weapon is not picky. No body likes a picky weapon.
4.Constructed in United States While I have no problem with buying foreign products when the world hasn't ended, what weapon I use while fighting through throngs of flesh-eating ghouls generally has something to do with where I get it. The SCAR is manufactured in Columbia, South Carolina which is very close to my home town. In the event of the dead rising it would be fairly reasonable to get to the plant and procure one of these weapons, if I so chose.
5. Light Weight The weapon is made from durable aluminum and polymer and weighs around 7 pounds (roughly the weight of one of those boxes of printer paper). This means that when you're schlepping it around your arms won't get tired from holding your weapon up for long periods and you can easy carry more ammunition with you as the added weight won't be taken up by your weapon. A gun without bullets is pretty useless against legions of the undead, at least en masse.

6.User friendly The civilian weapon is of ambidextrous design (lovely for all those left-handed zombie survivors out there) right down to the magazine release. It also has a very effective muzzle brake system (left) that cuts down on the recoil (which would knock my booty right on the ground). The low-recoil rate also cuts down on the shoulder fatigue generally associate with constant firing (imagine a brick being shoved into your shoulder over and over again. Ouch). Again, the design is made to be as convenient and idiot-proof as possible. All the buttons and bars are in places where almost anyone could figure out how to shoot it.

If and when the Apocalypse comes I would highly suggest this weapon become a part of your personal arsenal. If you want to run out and buy one now they run around 3000$ (they come with one 20 round magazine and a user's manual).
YAY!

True Blood Episode 3 Season 3

Well. That was an interesting episode.

Ahem.

Seriously?

O...k....

Well beyond the seriously creepy sex scene between Bill and Lorena (dude. She is extremely evil but did she deserve that? Seriously?), the episode was filled with great moments.

My favorite was Sam's family showing up at his restaurant to open a tab....and visit....because they love him.

His little brother is kind of a turd.

Jason is as imbecilic as ever; he has decided to become a police officer (for like ten minutes before the creepy "bullet wound on everyone's forehead" pyschosis showing up again to deter him, that and he's dumb).

I throughly enjoyed Eric giving Layfette the lovely SV 9 Competizione just because. Eric is always full of surprises.

Sookie's up to her usual antics. She places herself in harm's way in her efforts to gain some intel on Bill's location. In the process she befriends the lovely Alcide and we get to see the inside of quite a creepy werewolf bar.

My least favorite part was Franklin Mott and his insinuated mind/body rape of Tara. He uses his glamour in a most ungentlemanly way. I mean come on! I'd be so pissed. And Tara is so stupid looking him in the eyes like that. She was all high and mighty about her distrust of vampires and WHAM!

All in all it was a very.....odd.....episode of True Blood. I felt like I needed a shower. I felt like there was a lie going on. I feel confused and in need of answers.

oh and well I'll just wait 7 days to find out what this all means...wait...wha.....WHY DO I HAVE TO WAIT TWO WEEKS FOR THE NEXT EPISODE?

oh HBO you are a cruel mistress.

But I will wait.

Vampires: Stop Killing Them Already

I was piddling around wondering what to post today when I came across an interview done by one of my favorite authors: Neil Gaiman. Now Mr. Gaiman (who recently was awarded the Carnegie medal in the UK for his Graveyard Book) is probably not one of the most typical gory and undead authors most people would associate with an undead enthusiast such as myself.  But Mr. Gaiman and I share a passion for a recently popular topic: Vampires.

Now I know what you're thinking: "Shocker...A girl who likes vampires."

I have street cred ok?

I have liked vampires since before I was allowed to shave my legs (age 12). I watched Bordello of Blood at age 11 (thank you digital cable) and I must have seen Interview with the Vampire five hundred times by the time I had my first boyfriend (age 15). My first vampire film was Dracula (1931) which appeared on the Sci-Fi channel back in 1997, (I was 9). I was hooked. I loved his cape, (I wore a cape specifically like his for Halloween that year). I loved vampires, I loved their dark brooding hair and their big scary fangs that only came out once their stupid prey got alone and WHAM dead!

I like how they were almost always the bad guy. I liked that bad guy. I liked the night time setting and I like how even if I got scared they couldn't get me in day time. I liked the fangs and the daunting reward of immortality. I like brooding Louis and deliciously evil Lestat. I enjoyed watching Salma Hayek switch from bodacious babe to blood thirsty brood queen. I giggled at Leslie Nielson stumbling over his Bela Lugosi accent in Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995). And I adored Blade and Blade II and their thoroughly satisfying fight scenes and blood effects.

So I read the twilight books when I was in high school. This was in 2005, way before the subsequent film franchise and all that crap started coming out. I read the book because it looked interesting and I needed a book to read. And I will admit, I enjoyed reading it. But the further into the series I got the less impressed I became. The "vampires" were whiny, teenager-y and completely unwilling to give into their desires--which seemed to be the complete opposite of what a vampire represented. A vampire was immortal and beyond harm--they could do whatever they want, save getting a suntan (which Lestat actually does in one Anne Rice's novels, go figure). Vampires did not agonize over what they wanted. They did not fall for histrionic humans with enough emotional baggage to fill a semi-truck. Vampires deign to deal with humans and if they do select one to become emotionally/sexually/intellectually intimate with, the relationship generally has certain parameters that befit the superiority (to a point, some vampires are gross and useless even for vampires) of the vampire.

For example: Eric from True Blood. This is one bad ass vampire. Besides being ungodly attractive, the vampire is extremely cool. He was born a viking. A VIKING. And he has a cool accent. And he is a shrewd businessman. And he's a good person...well kind of. But he fits the definition of vampire. Confined by sunlight, silver and stakes but freed by immortality and strength. Good but bad he is constantly being selfless but only to get him what he wants. Ugly yet beautiful, he'll eat a man but do so with perfect hair and blemish-free skin. A vampire is a balance between life and death...so the vampire themself must be balanced. Eric meets this requirement perfectly.

 Then there's Edward from Twilight. Yeah he's pretty, but where's the ugly? He doesn't kill anything but deer and bears; where are his flaws? Yeah he's immortal but where's the confinement? He can't be killed by sunlight, and from what I can tell silver and stakes have no affect on him. He has no off button, no "yeah he can do all of this but....." What is stopping him from taking over the world? "He sensitive and thinks he's a monster...oh that's right." But where's he's evil? Where the dichotomy? Where's the fun? The answer is: there is no fun. Edward is a whiny bitch. He is no fun. Tormented and restrained he's nothing more than a immortal Heathcliff without the benefit of dying from a broken heart. He's not a vampire, just some bitchy teenager who won't ever really grow up.

Tons of Twilight-y wannabe media has sprung up since Meyer's success. All I can really say is how little her book has done for the genre. It totally sucks (pun intended) the fun out what makes a vampire fun. It is supposed to be a dirty pleasure, not a dumbed down sexually frustrated PG-13 movie.

VAMPIRES ARE RATED R!

Crossed Family Values #2

The point of Crossed is to freak you out, which it does with with staggering mastery. But with the sugar comes the medicine.

Because the real monsters in this comic, as it is with all true horror films, comics, books and other media in this genre are not the monsters themselves but the regular people.

David Lapham has a true command of this genre. The slick horror of each page draws the reader in for what eventually becomes the proverbial rug pulled out from beneath one's feet. The real horror is how Lapham builds you up for the fall.

This issue was a real testament to Lapham's skill.  The first issue revealed the horrible reality of our heroine's life before the Crossed infection enters the picture. The second issues greets us some time after. Everything that isn't to do with the Crossed seems to be OK, that is the evil that was not the cause of the infection seems to have abated.

I got drawn in thinking, "Wow. Maybe its stopped. Maybe their only enemy is the Crossed now."

Boy was I wrong. Not only has the depravity remained at a constant at the very least, but it has the potential for exponential increase.

I should have known better.

You go David Lapham. You go all the way.

I think my initial problems concerning the new artist have been put to rest, at least temporarily. I've begun to enjoy his style and appreciate his skill. It makes sense that he was chosen to pair up with Lapham for this series.

Good issue. Can't wait for the next one.

Legion Review

I enjoy angels. I've read Sandman and Lucifer, I cried at Michael (1996) and saw that weird Paul Hogan movie that came out after Crocodile Dundee II (1988). I enjoy bad ass things with wings. And somehow the idea of angels with weapons other than flaming swords while admittedly unorthodox (pun slightly intended) is potentially cool. So when I saw Legion was coming out this year I was intrigued.

The plot has potential: apparently God has lost faith in humanity and has sent his legions of angels to possess weak willed humans to kill humanity's one last hope that is currently growing in the womb of an unwed mother (Adrianne Palicki) in the middle of the Mojave Desert in Nevada. *inhale* Michael (Paul Bettany) the archangel still has faith and cut his wings off and found a bunch of big guns and is helping the really important baby be born despite being told not to by his brother archangel Gabriel (Kevin Durand).

From an action movie stand point this film is entertaining. Lots of guns, scary jump moments (kind of) and some icky scenes involving bugs and blood. The film is also really pretty and obviously had a pretty decent budget. I like the filters that are used to shoot the desert scenes and I think the CGI was completely awesome. A ton better than the angel-stuff in Constantine(2005). The gore presence was small but focused. They use it in the correct places, like when a dude gets his back melted down to the spinal cord (wicked awesome) with angel acid and a possessed lady bites a chunk out of somebody etc. And again, the premise is really promising. I like that the film isn't just another "Satan versus God" shtick. It really does put a new-er spin on things and adds a breath of fresh air to the newly re-popularized end-of-the-world movie fascination in the US.

However, my problem with this film is how little time it spent on the angels. I mean their costumes in the film are totally cool and the CGI wings (bullet proof and really sharp apparently) are totally bad ass. But they spend a ton of time on the people in the film and not nearly enough on humanity through God's and the angels' eyes. They dwell on it vaguely through the eyes of a jerk cop (who then proceeds to fake-shoot a bunch of homeless people) but don't really give us God's story on why all the sudden humanity isn't worth it. What was the breaking point? What was the last straw? How do all the other angels feel about this? Can we meet some of them? Show us the beginning of time where Michael begins to love humanity. Show us more Gabriel/Michael arguments. More than just gun fights etc. Throughout the whole film I feel like I'm party to a story that happened just before I walked into the room. It's rather distracting and is borderline confusing.  I love back story in films and wish there was more to this one.

Then there is the ending. I guess that Hollywood has run out of endings for movies involving the apocalypse. Terminator (1984) anyone?  I mean come on! The film ends with a woman with a baby in the front seat of a car driving in the desert. She's even wearing a bandanna!

 That on top of the fact that the girl spends about 80% of the film arguing with a guy who 1) comes from a different plane (Kyle Reese was from the future, Michael from Heaven) she wields several guns none of which she could have just instantaneously learned how to use 3) fights a giant dude who can't be killed with weapons like a M16. I mean Gabriel is so obviously Arnold's character from Terminator (right down to Gabriel's weird Heaven-ese accent) that Legion's director Scott Charles Stewart should be paying James Cameron royalties. *sigh*

In the end I'm really glad I didn't see this movie in theaters because I would have felt like I'd spent WAAAY too much money. But it is a definite rent or watch on demand, I wouldn't buy it on DVD or Blue-Ray. The film is certainly entertaining but is bland and unoriginal enough to prevent my clearing a space on the shelf for it.

Tactical Tuesday #2

Welcome to Tactical Tuesday!!!

Today's topic deals with weaponry and I have decided to discuss an advantageous tool for zombie/post-Apocalypse utility.

Ladies and Gentlemen the Halligan tool!!!

The Halligan tool was created by a fireman in the 1940's. Over the years several different versions have arrived on the market (notice the different ones depicted in the diagrams below).

So what exactly makes the Halligan an effective Zombie management device?

1. The tool is one piece of welded metal (often titanium or carbon steel) meaning that breakage (the number one downside of weapons like traditional axes, baseball bats, pieces of lumber etc) is unlikely. The material choice also means the likelihood of rust is small. The tool is also light and easily portable. Also, since it is a melee weapon, it does not require reloading, which brings with it issues like specialized ammo etc. And unlike a big sword like a Japanese katana (a popular choice with amateur zombie enthusiasts) it doesn't require the maintence a long-bladed weapon does like oiling, sharpening, honing etc.

2. Another benefit of the tool is its variety of features. The pick on the side (meant to be used for breaking open door locks and padlocks) is perfect for cerebral damage! The crowbar on one end is good for cranial blows but has the added benefit of a useful tool with which to scavenge. The Sledge end is also useful for opening cans of food, hammering tent spikes into the ground and of course annihilating undead gray matter.

3. I reiterate: Portability. A weapon that is a pain in the butt to carry around does very little for the person carrying it. This is amplified if the weapon actually hinders survival (carrying a chainsaw around would really suck if you found yourself in a body of water and its weight was causing you to sink). This tool is extremely light, only a few pounds if that but is still strong and very capable of being useful.

4. Remember that an empty hand is a hand with which you can defend yourself. If you can efficiently combine a tool and weapon in a way that's portable you will be much better off. The halligan tool is an excellent example. Efficiency=longevity.

5. Firefighters normally have this weapon/tool on their fire trucks, so if and when the time comes, have a care to poke around on the nearest fire truck (unless you want to buy one and be all boy-scouty before the fact, in which case the following website will more than happily charge you around 200$ for some of the higher quality models:  http://www.thefirestore.com/store/category.cfm/cid_2058_pro_bars/?gclid=CP7DsPDZnqICFRUhnAodrzcixQ

Remember, this is just a suggestion. When in an actual Zombie Apocalypse don't shun a weapon in order to hold out for an "ideal" weapon you may or may not find later. If you really are interested it would be best to seek out this weapon before the fact, so you can be prepared. Preparation=longevity.