The New Reader vs. Lobo Portrait of a Bastich

Alright, so today I want to talk a little bit about one of my favorite books.  Portrait of a Bastich is a collection of two Lobo stories.  For those of you that don't know, Lobo is an ass-kicking, shit talking, intergalactic bounty hunter.  He's not a nice guy, and isn't on anyones list of heroes.  Lobo books are really intended for a more mature audience, and being a "mature" person, I just had to read it.

So, the first story sees Lobo, hired by the government to track down a teacher and escort her to them.  As he travels through space, he stops off at a bar, a theater, and a resort.  At each place he causes loads of trouble, making more and more people angry.  The art is wonderful, and the dialouge between our bad mouthed bounty hunter and the proper, stand up teacher is hilarious.  

Now, the second story, in my opinion, is the superior of the two.  The stories starts, with the death of the main man.  From then on out, Lobo rampages through heaven, trying to force them to reincarnate him.  They agree, but in their own terms, turning him into a woman. 

After he's managed to die again, he continues his rampage through heaven to force them to give him a second reincarnation.  Finally, after killing a good three-quarters of heavens residents, they give him what he wants, bring him back to life with an official contract stating "Under NO conditions is the individual known as Lobo to be collected.  His file has been categorized as untouchable, pursuant to clause 27-c, paragraph 7: i~xiv of the immortality brief of 12 B.C."  

The New Reader vs. Showcase Presents The Green Arrow

Recently, while browsing the comic store, I saw something that I thought to be amazing.  A large, 500 page book for only $16.99!  This book was part of the Showcase Presents series released by DC Comics.  These books are collections of short comics, 5-10 pages each.  The reason they're so cheap, and one of the major complaints I've heard about them, is that they are entirely in black and white.  Something that a lot of readers have a problem with, purely because some characters are so dependent on their color (Green Arrow & Green Lantern for example).

Despite this, I picked it up anyway.  I wasn't going to pass up the chance to read stories from the 1950's and 1960's about my favorite hero.  Reading through, the biggest problem I had was that without coloring, it is often difficult to tell the difference between Green Arrow, and his trusty partner, Speedy.  Other than that, the book is wonderful, consisting of over 50 zany stories, including The Ape Archer and The Mystery of the Giant Arrows.  

Each story is filled with witty one liners, arrow based puns, and some interesting and useful arrows. One of the best parts of reading these classic stories is to see the cheesiness of each and every arrow. Seeing arrows such as the boomerang arrow, the bola arrow, the balloon arrow, and the rain arrow. 

Despite the flaw of being in black and white, I would recommend the showcase presents series to anyone who loves comics.  These stories show the origins of each of these characters, and each book is set up to show some of the defining comics of the age.