Welcome to another edition of HALFASS

I'm swamped at work today that my head is literally spinning, so I'm pulling another one from the Yahoo! draft archives. A few years back I used to be chummy with some owners of a auction website www.popula.com that sold mostly antiques and rare books on line. They were introduced to my first Deposit Man book, the rare and abominable anthology, Malice by some other local yokel LA cartoonist whose name escapes me at the moment- but he self published this book called Lubcheck or something. Anyway, these folks managed to put the book on line and sold Malice through a few auctions. So to return the favor, I offered to write a semi-regular column for them concerning my once then passion for independent small press comic books. They liked it well enough, but we both couldn't find the time to equally commit to it. So here it is presented in all it's unedited glory:

Hi Maria,

Cary ( The Deposit Man ) Coatney here. Thanks for putting Malice up for auction. Just got through checking it out. My cousin in Kansas City has just now recieved his copy and has the cover to the second one so he can start developing a web-site on the Deposit Man.

You wanted some reviews for me, and I finally sat
down and wrote some stuff down about other little known
books, but I want to pitch them in a different format.
And since this website is titled the Popula page. Why
not have a junior version called Pop N Fresh ?

I wrote it all down in hard copy- would you rather
I send it to you guys or E-mail it while I edit it.
I can do both. Let me give you a preview:

Popula Pop 'N Fresh

Mini Reviews

By Cary Coatney

Any small press publisher want a honest to goodness evaluation of their comic book project ? Looking to read something out of the ordinary ? Then look no further than popula.com where you're sure to find a divergent selection of the avant garde in the combination of words and pictures. This and future updates will inform and delight you on the tiltilating craze called the independent movement and the wares they have to offer in a revolving mix of three to four books.

From out of Glendale, Ca comes Hero On a Stick, published by Lee Breadall and Big Baby Comics
( $ 2.95 ).Immediately, we leap into the premiere
chapter of a skeptical sourpuss named Bobby Pheugo; whom- when surrounded by droll family members, longs for an escape from his kindred relations. He can't stand his wife. He can't stand his mother. And most of
all, he can't stand his little caricature of a little
friend who finds him sulking on a water tower just so he can boast about his latest five buck purchase of Cobra-Man # 45. Someone named Simon has passed on and the loss is gnawing at Bobby's gut. Bobby needs to shake out of his doldrums, so he goes out for a drive and his life then takes a unprecedented turn when he gets involved in a fatal accident that claims the life
of a outer worldly alien, leaving behind a little infant green baby a orphan. Basically, that is all which can be said without blowing the cliffhanger.

The second feature to be found more desirous is the back up feature, Eddie The Flea. Eddie can be seen here in various vignettes of helping his dog friend, Barnstible win the affections of the family cat. What's unique about Beardall's cartooning is that he applies two distinctive styles between both features. Hero On
a Stick looks lie it jumped off a newspaper editorial
page or a descended cousin from the Jules Feiffer strip in the Village Voice; whereas Eddie The Flea reads and feels like a rough cut of a Saturday Morning cartoon. I'd rather Beardall swap the lead feature to Eddie The Flea just to get the adrenalin flowing before navigat-
ing through the murkiness of the lead, Hero On A Stick.
Grade: B+

From my hometown of Parsippany, N.J. comes the debut of Rachel Danara, Mystic For Hire. The ashcan edition that was passed out at last summer's San Diego Comic Con International showed promise with graphic designer
Jeff Zugale's duotoned draftsmanship and the debut issue surely lives up to more of that promise.

Pagan City showcases the fetching premise of a city
settled out west by magicians, druids, witches, and a
troupe of out-of-work-vaudeville performers. The city is currently protectred by a ex-hairdresser,Rachel Danara, who also moonlights as a mystic private dectective against invasions of vampires, ghouls, and evil immortals. Sort of like Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
having a mid-life crisis or Doctor Strange hanging out
with hipsters.

This book instantly grew on me. It's a myraid of Chris Wichtendahl's crisp ear for dialogue or Zugale's
carefully executed design; bringing in a rich contrast of greys and blacks to a over-all pleasing package rich
in texture and affluent in detail. Simply a Image style
looking book with various computer generated effects that is better written. The potpourri of characters walk out of a Magic card deck. Look for cameo appearances by William Shatner ans Leonard Nimoy in homage to a croos between a talk show anD Nimoy's old
seventies " In Search Of " paranormal documentary series. It's a real hoot. Grade: A

Two brothers, Tim and John Frick are currently in negotiations with Diamond Comics Distributors to bring their imprint, Twilight Odysseys to life with their first title, " Blue Midknight and the Moonlight
Lady. " The Fricks dedicate their giant-sized massive 32 page no ad story to the late Captain America editor and scribe, Mark Gruenwald and that dedication pays off
in reinventing those off-kilter shield slinging stories that chronicle the lives of two blue skinned brother and sister trapeze artist team, Wintrop and Susan, as they dodge the evil pursuits of vampire, Baron Gilles De Rais. The siblings' gypsy upbringing kind of parallels the early Marvel brother and sister mutant team of Quicksilver and the Scarlett Witch, while the Baron is a not so inspired swipe of Marv Wolfman's
Marvel's early seventies version of Tomb of Dracula.
The brothers do cram a lot of story ( it took me between 35 and 40 minutes to get through it all ), but the art itself lacks any panache or fluidness. All the heads look as if they were modeled after pumpkins or show too much line in facial expressions. I was even reminded of another small press title, " Yikes !" that
had all the characters in that book drawn with big
exaggerated giant heads. Still, it's worth a summer's
afternoon read at the pool or beach. Grade: C+

Those interested in seeing their small press titles
reviewed, send a sample copy to Pop N Fresh Reviews

and we'll see you in the funny pages.

FIFTEEN MINUTE BREAK April 10, 2003

Do I have a political or a religious agena? I never really thought about it. I know when I'm writing The Deposit Man, I throw in a few lines in here or there of things that I wish would disappear off the face of the earth. One thing that truly galls me is Scientology- I just think this religion based on a bet made between two now deceased science-fiction authors to who could start up a cult first is appalling ( it also served as the inspiration for the movie Trading Places starring Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy)- I mean, c'mon folks: the jokes over. In recent years, a now defunct alternative area newspaper here in the Los Angeles area ran a series of scathing exposes exposing L Ron Hubbards work carrying automatons for the money grubbing frauds they are. These vulture pus sucking leeches will prey on the weak and the helpless ( including the physically challenged) and try to siphon these poor hardworking people of their every last cent through brainwashing and deceit. In fact, come to think of it, I have a beef with all religion in generals. I even get accosted by Jewish people who try to flaunt their beliefs in my face and insist that I join their synagogues- which is a first for me- Jewish people hawking their torahs. There's usally a waiting list if you want to be converted to a Jew. I wonder why some rabbi was willing to give me a free pass? Heck, I usually got to hold the Christian fanatics at bay who try to sneak their worthless Watchtower magazines or pamphlets in my book bag while strolling down Ventura Blvd- now I gotta go knocking off yamulkes off people's heads, too?

But anyway, yeah, the abolishment and the complete denial of religion plays a prominent role in the creation of the Deposit Man - it's like a atheist coming in uninvited in a internet catholic chatroom and wrecking the place up and then try to reconstruct all the shit you were shoved down in Sunday School into his own image. The reason why I went on this rant was because I was rewriting this scene in my Deposit Man book and it dealt with a turf war between the made up religions of Scientogolists and Self -Relationship Followers (swami shit). I keep going back to re-tweak it now and then, because I want to get it just right. But- I think the most important of writing an epic book of the Deposit Man is propeling the story along- something I'm not gettting the knack of.

Well, as usual, my fifteen minutes are up.

~

Coat

FIFTEEN MINUTE BREAK April 9, 2003

Interesting, now things change and they still remain the same. Now cliched is that? Just a few hours ago I was surfing away on the net and checking to see what's new in the world of progressive rock, and lo and behold, on a progressive rock label's website do I find that they are releasing an album of brand new material by none other than..... David Lee Roth! Somehow, I mind the merging of an old eighties act with a label that puts out some intensifying acts of those with integrity and well practised musicanship kind of well....intriguing. I can hardly wait of what the result will be. But on a side note, I gotta remember that this label, Magna Carta sort of resurrected Kansas's career and the singer of that band, Steve Walsh has released a superb solo release called Glossalonia (sp?) through this label and has popped up with guest vocals on several new releases such as the Explorer's Club and Leonardo. Hopefully this will pan out for dear old Diamond Dave. I forgot to mention that Sandman cover artist, Dave McKean has contributed many of his talents to these CD covers as well.

Another perk to this release, and I hope I'm right about this, even though I'm not so sure- but I'm good friends with this woman of whom I used to work with in a mortgage company going back about six or seven years now- and she is now happily married to this guitar player who's made his living doing some of these retro disco acts that you see every now and then at some local clubs in the LA area. Eventually he went on and joined another outfit that does nothing but Van Halen covers, David Lee Roth happened to see his act and invited him to join his touring band- but whether or not he is recording this disc with Roth remains to be seen. So I'm going to have to do some investigating.

So until then, my fifteen minutes are up,

~

Coat

FIFTEEN MINUTE BREAK April 8, 2003


I suppose I could continue my analogy of my female characters in the Deposit Man. I figure when I'm writing- that's it's detrimental to have characters of all races and gender represented. I also introduce a former love interest in the Deposit Man's upcoming mini-series, an oriental undercover agent named Jing Na. But maybe I shouldn't be saying too much about him as it might blow away some spoilers on how the series. But I also wanted to bring in some strong independent take no shit from men female characters and one that is featured prominently is a 'angel' police detective named Betty Fusco. She made her first brief appearance in The Deposit Man Kalediscopic Medicine Freak Show a couple of years back. I think subconsciously she was modeled on porn actress, Hyapatia Lee of whom I used to have a e-mail correspondence with a touch of Betty Page thrown in (for the incredible bondage scenes I had in the following The Deposit Man Survival Guide to the Afterlife. The weirdest thing about her creation was that I thought I totally made up the last name of Fusco. I don't know how the name came to me and I wasn't so sure of what her nationality would be- but it turns out that some people actually do have the last name of Fusco and it's Italian! Anyway, she's a spunky sexy gal who's primary goal in the afterlife is to convert the Deposit Man away from his proclaimed homosexuality. She sure has a mean mouth on her, she even has the tenacity to tell God off and is in the process of earning her 'wings' (well, she is an angel after all). I have a lot of fun writing her dialogue with a little help of my former roommate, Rebecca.

Well, I've got a busy night ahead of me. I'm seeing a employee screening of Bringing Down the House. Not my usual fare- but hey, who can pass up a free movie these days?

My fifteen minutes are up.

~

Coat

FIFTEEN MINUTE BREAKApril 7, 2003

All the girls at work loooooovvvvvvve Vin Diesal.

Man, what a busy weekend- even with losing an hour, as we all had to set our clocks an hour ahead early Sunday morning. Saturday afternoon, I strolled over to a new comic book store that opened not too far from my house near Sherman Oaks called Earth 2. It's owned by these two guys who used to work in the movie industry. It's been doing business close to a month now- but they didn't get around to having a grand opening celebration until last weekend. Some well notable comic book industry talent in the local Los Angeles area were there to sign copies of their just released projects. Len Wein was signing copies of his new Batman Elseworlds mini-series called Nevermore (Batman sharing the same timeline with Edgar Allen Poe?) lavishly illustrated by Guy Davis. Dwayne McDuffie was talking to people about his work on the Static Shock animated series and the upcoming season of Justice League and signed my copy of the latest Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight issue featuring his new villain, the Blink. Others in attendance, sitting around shooting the breeze and chomping down on homemade cheese crackers were Jeff Parker (the Innerman, Batgirl, etc;) Ron Zimmerman, and Marv Wolfman. There was a guy who is marketing mini-flip books to Dark Horse, of whose name escapes at the moment and they just simply blew me away- he had one collection of Hellboy and another of Concrete.

However, I couldn't help noticing that no one else shopping took notice of Oscar winning actress and former Partridge Family mom, Shirley Jones walking in taking part in the festivities.

Man, I swear- I can't keep to my word. I made a vow earlier in the year that I was going to swear off buying comics so I could save up pubishing and paying off the people who worked on my Deposit Man self published adventures. So why in blue hell, did I blow $120.00 on comic books this past weekend? The bulk of my purchases were of four paperback and hardcover books. I bought Jeff Parker's self published graphic novel, The Innerman, and DC's trade paperback of the last year's Eisner award winning Bizarro Comics and I splurged on Will Eisner's The Spirit Archives Vol 10 at Rookies' ( a store I have some money invested in ) and found The Golden Age Spectre Volume 1 for $40 at yesterday's Los Angeles Science Fiction and Comic Book Show at the Shrine Auditorium. I keep thinking, I'll save a bundle of money by simply dropping monthly titles and waiting until they collect certain issues and issue them in trade paperback. It's a experiment for now, but it doesn't seem to be working out for me at the moment. Well, I guess it's pretty unusual that most of these books came out roughly all at the same time. I had thought at least DC would wait until the end of this month to release the Spirit book since the Spectre one came out just two week ago.

So yesterday, at the Shrine, I also picked up some free giveaway posters and calenders of Vin Diesel in support of the new F. Gary Gary film, A Man Apart and they were instantly gobbled up by my female co-workers this morning. Says who I don't cater to females' fantasies?

My fifteen minutes are up.


~

Coat