Tagged: black mask
We Can Never Go Home: Classic Punk Rock Variant Covers!
I had to put up some of these awesome variant covers for one of my favorite comic books out on the scene right now- We Can Never Go Home. Being a big fan of classic punk rock I can’t say enough about how cool these are. If you haven’t checked out the book yet it’s a super fun read and set back in the 1980s. They’ve been doing some various variant covers in the theme of classic 80’s punk rock album cover. Here’s are the comic book covers along with the album covers they’re based on! Get this book from Black Mask Studios and yeah if you haven’t already – get these albums!!
We Can Never Go Home – Truly Dangerous Teen Angst and Punk Spirit in the 80’s!
Oh how I love the 80’s! There’s something truly unique about that decade and even more so to me, having grown up in that era. That might be one of the reasons why I am loving ‘We Can Never Go Home‘ from Black Mask Studios so much, it really holds some serious nostalgia within it’s pages. In the late 80’s I was probably just about the same age as these characters in the book and was fueled by things like skateboarding, punk rock and well for me…girls. This series is set in 1989 and feature two characters who somehow seem like long lost characters from my childhood, only these two teens have something other than just raging hormones pulsating through their veins, they’ve also got some strange superhuman abilities. So what’s so unique about a story with some teenage misfits with dangerous mutant like powers you might ask?
Well writer Matthew Rosenberg pulls no punches and at issue #2 we see our two leads getting into a boat load of serious, serious trouble. Imagine if you were a teenager with raging hormones and you had a peculiar case of superhuman strength or could kill someone with your mind? It’d be a dangerous scenario and after our two troubled teens Madison & Duncan become friends it becomes quite an unholy alliance. With Madison sending her boyfriend crashing through a car window after he picks a fight with a loner punk rocker Duncan, things begin to get real messy real quick. Soon these two find out they have more in common than they ever imagined.
After one fatal move the two are bound to never go home and head off on a road trip that by issue number two will have you gasping for air. These two teens just seem to get deeper and deeper into a tangled web that could easily cost them and anyone they care about their lives. So what better solution than stealing a car and robbing the local drug dealer of all his cash huh?
I’m also loving all of excellent references to old punk rock, mix tapes with everything awesome & confusing about being a teen in the 1980’s. It’s clear Rosenberg himself is a fan of the era and he captures the heart of a great rebellious 80’s flick within the pages of his book, which isn’t an easy task. I can already see this series transformed into great tv series or movie, kind like if ‘Heathers’ and ‘Firestarter’ got together and had lovechild.
So in a time when superhero books leave you feeling a bit empty inside it’s nice to know we’ve got a true alternative to the genre and one more exciting road trip left to go on with that awesome girl (or boy) that may have have got away many years ago. Just make sure to bring that totally rad old mix tape on this ride because is gonna get epic and most definitely deadly…
Toe Tag Riot: Punk Rock Zombie Mayhem!
If you’re a fan of punk rock and old school 80’s style horror there’s a good chance you’ll get a kick out Black Mask’s “Toe Tag Riot” a new rowdy zombie comic book adventure! This one reads more like an installment of the “Return of the Living Dead” movie franchise than “The Walking Dead” and that’s a good thing because we really don’t need any more comic books hitting the shelves these days trying to capture what Robert Kirkman has so gloriously accomplished. Written By Matt Miner and illustrated by Sean Von Gorman we get bloody good tale of a touring punk rock band with a zombie curse mysteriously cast upon them. They fight with the urges to eat flesh as they spend only part of the time as undead (from what I can tell thus far it seems right before they hit the stage) and when they do turn into flesh eaters they spend much of their time ripping apart Nazi Skinheads, angry moms and pissed off bible thumpers!
This series so far really reminds me of something you might have found in a punk rock fanzine back in the 1990’s, full of crude humor & gore, while hitting on several political and social issues like racism, homophobia and nut job religious groups like the Westboro Baptist Church. It follows the bands exploits while giving us brief flashbacks of how the band came to be and just how they developed into zombies. If you’re looking for a serious zombie epic you’ll most likely be a bit disappointed here, but if you’re looking for a good tongue in cheek comedy you’ll probably dig Toe Tag Riot quite a bit.
The first read really reminded me of a canadian vampire flick called “Suck” which had a pretty similar premise but not hitting on issues Toe Tag Riot delves into. If you’re familiar with that movie, the band, like in Toe Tag Riot are struggling with their popularity & end up tragically becoming Vampires. They use their unique new attributes to their advantage to hit the big time. Still I found the first two issues to be a pretty sweet little ball of mayhem and I’m curious to see where the next couple take us.
A fun read which would go down nice with a few stiff drinks, the only part of it I wasn’t particularly keen on was the odd inclusion of the main dude from ‘Fall Out Boy’ into the story-not exactly screaming punk rock to me at least, I’m actually kinda hoping that guy gets eaten by the band (nothing personal, I just think that’d be kinda cool)….. either way Check it out! A cool zombie comic that’s quite a bit different from the herd!
Universal Dork 