What I Bought 12/26/2025

Almost as obnoxious as all the ads for these sports betting apps I see on the rare occasions I watch TV, are the ads for this stupid Taylor Sheridan show. I'm tired of seeing Billy Bob Thornton, looking like a rotting cloth sack leaking cow shit, informing us that his wife owns the business, but he runs it. Yeah, that's what any sensible person would be concerned about. I wouldn't trust him to order a combo meal in the drive thru, let alone run an oil company, or whatever the hell the "business" is.

In other news, this is the last new comic of 2025. So next week, is Comics in Review.

Hector Plasm: Hunt for Bigfoot #3, by Benito Cereno (writer), Derek Hunter (artist/letterer), Spencer Holt (colorist) - Did Hector steal the live boar cloak from Bigfoot? Hope he washed it, that thing can't smell good.

Hector and the sheriff confront Jervaise in his office, where the instructor, sorry, professor, is only too eager to monologue about how he's communed with the spirit of some tribe of people that traveled here through subterranean tunnels. Not to prove how smart he is, but because he hopes to find the gold they used to make statues and idols and such.

Despite the sheriff's best efforts, Jervaise summons the ghost, eager for it to feed on Hector's blood for a boost. The caveman-ghost proving immune to bullets, it's a swordfight between him and Hector, while Jervaise goes increasingly loony on the sidelines, like some delirious sports fan. He's ranting and gesticulating wildly enough he tears the armpits out of his shirt (nice touch by Hunter there), not that it spares him the ghost's wrath.

Hector ends up beating the ghost, and the sheriff seems to deal with what's left of Jervaise. Which means, once Hector tells Lip all this, it's time to leave, Hector confident there are no Bigfoots around. Because, as he explains in a page behind some author notes by Cereno, the various subspecies were hunted to extinction during dedicated campaigns in the 1800s.

I'm left wondering about the witch and the ghost that Hector initially fought. Jervaise notified him about that as a lure, hoping to feed Hector to his caveman-ghost, but I'm not sure if the initial threat was something else Jervaise summoned, or a pre-existing situation. The ghost daughter said her mother bewitched her father to kill her fiance to protect their bloodline. Which makes me wonder if "Ferdie" (the fiance) was part of the same bloodline as the caveman-ghost (and Jervaise), or if that was just unrelated weirdness.

What I Bought 12/3/2025 - Part 1

I actually ordered these books two weeks ago, but the package spent a solid week going from Kansas City to. . . Kansas City. Then it dicked around who knows where for another three days before finally showing up here. But at least it arrived, and we can close out the last of November's books.

Bronze Faces #6, by Shobo and Shof (writers), Alexandre Tefenkgi (artist), Lee Loughridge (color artist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer) - The rose in the damaged eye is a nice touch. 

A lot of the issue is focused on Sango returning to Nigeria for a big exhibition of the bronzes at a museum. So she sees the way Ogiso was seized on by seemingly everyone. Everyone singing Timi's song, everyone talking about Ogiso and what they accomplished. And Gbonka's used it to launch a greater political career. The Scotland Yard detective obviously let Gbonka and her crew take Timi's body, and then retired, because she's hanging around just, chilling at the exhibition.

Sango and Gbonka try and have one last conversation, and it goes miserably. Sango admits she should have been there for Timi's burial, and Gbonka agrees, for him and for her, and this somehow sets Sango off. It feels like that thing where people project what they know about themselves on others. Sango tends to put her desires and interests above everyone else. If she wants something she goes for it. If she doesn't want to deal with someone, she just shoves them aside. We get a flashback to what seems to have caused the rift and it's a case where something bad happened and Sango basically said, "fuck this, I'm out of here."

So maybe Sango takes Gbonka's words as proof she's doing the same. That Sango let down Gbonka, and that was just not acceptable, because it's all about what Gbonka, with her big plans to build up Nigeria, that are important. It's acceptable to use Timi's song as a rallying cry, even after his death, or borrow Sango's designs for the museum, because Gbonka's higher purpose makes it so.

In Sango's eyes, it's justifications for selfishness, but I guess we're not meant to agree with that, as she's shown repeatedly losing her temper at all sorts of people. Tefenkgi draws her at various times as a giant, who towers over a cab driver she's berating, or as spitting fire at Gbonka (who calmly walks through it and tells her she can never come back.)

I think the fact Sango's not from Nigeria originally factors in somehow, but I'm not clear enough on ethnic divisions in West African societies to grasp it. I was under the impression a lot of African nations are made of many different groups that got told they were a country when whatever European country colonized that area departed, regardless of the sometimes centuries-old tensions that existed. But maybe the idea is that, through the Benin Bronzes, Gbonka is creating a national identity for Nigeria that transcends those barriers. So Sango's unwillingness to buy in or get with the program means she has no place in it? Taking back the bronzes was never about anything like that for her.

Hector Plasm: Hunt for Bigfoot #2, by Benito Cereno (writer), Derek Hunter (artist/letterer), Spencer Holt (colorist) - I feel like the living, warthog skin cloak is actually more terrifying than the Bigfoot. 

Hector manages to convince the sheriff he didn't kill the new victim, and the victim's spirit says Bigfoot did it. They find a bloody footprint, but only one. A search in the woods reveals no trail, but a strange stone arrangement that Hector says gives off bad vibes. Hunter and Holt illustrate this with, jagged, crown-shaped panels that arc over and around the arrangement, spanning the panels Hector and Lip are in.

Hector starts to suspect Lip is behind this to raise the profile of their museum, but this would seem to be blown out of the water when the Bigfoot attacks Lip that night, and nearly tears their arm off. And this is a spot where the way Image printed the book entirely fucks it up, because pages 11 and 12 are laid out so you read the top row of panels across the two pages, as Bigfoot closes on Lip and grabs their arm, then the bottom row, as Bigfoot starts to swing Lip around and Hector rushes to the rescue.

Except the comic is set up where you have to turn the page to get from 11 to 12, completely breaking the flow of the book. I read page 11, flipped to page 12, paused, muttered, "what the hell?" Flipped back to 11, then back to 12, focusing on the top half. Then repeating the process for the bottom half. Feels like something that could have been avoided. (The issue is also only 17 pages, but the first issue was 24, so they're still averaging 20.5 pages per issue.)

Also, Bigfoot's a ghost, which is actually probably a relief for Hector, since he's got more experience dealing with those. 

What I Bought 10/23/2025 - Part 1

I was out of town for a week on a trip with Alex, and only returned two days ago, after we drove 20 hours straight. It was a fun trip, all told, but I now deeply despise the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

I did have the opportunity during the trip to stop in one comic store, and found the three books from the last two weeks I wanted, so let's dive in.

Hector Plasm: Hunt the Bigfoot #1, by Benito Cereno (writer), Derek Hunter (artist/letterer), Spencer Holt (colorist) - It was only as typing this post that I noticed the cheerful ghost fetus at the bottom of the cover.

I picked up the previous Hector Plasm books out of back issues in preparation for this mini-series a couple of months ago, but the first page does a quick recap of Hector's origin, purpose, abilities, and allies. Then Cereno and Hunter move immediately into Hector fighting a shotgun-wielding lumberjack ghost that had been killing teenagers. The ghost isn't much trouble, but the situation is complicated by a witch that was controlling it.

Still, after only 7 pages Hector's being thanks by a Professor Jervaise, who had contacted him, and is willing to spot Hector the room for a night at the local motel. As it turns out, Jervaise researches early human activity in the area, though it's the Bigfoot wing of the museum, maintained by Philippa "Lip" Dyson, that keeps the lights on. The area is deep in Bigfoot lore, including a legend about a mining camp being attacked by apelike humans who hurled rocks and possible abducted a woman.

Hector nonetheless turns down Lip's request to hunt Bigfoot, because even if it exists - and he doesn't believe it does - it isn't hurting anyone, and his duty is to maintain peace between the living and the dead. Then a body turns up - which Hunter draws with big "X"s over each eye - and the sheriff does not want to oddball stranger leaving town just yet. So Hector reluctantly agrees to help Lip with the search.

Cereno sets up most of the characters, and enough backstory to keep it mysterious as to what might be important later. I'm pretty sure Lip confirming the local community college has a 'robust occult section,' will be relevant, but was the witch's concern about the purity of their bloodline something with greater significance? The sword Hector was so taken with in Jervaise's half of the museum is definitely going to play in. Chekov's Giant Obsidian Sword.

I'd been trying for days to think of what Hunter's art reminds me of, and settled on the side scrolling Scott Pilgrim game. The shapes of the faces, but all there's a rough exaggeration to the characters that reminds me of the pixellation, without the art actually being pixellated. The exaggeration leans more to the comedy side of things, so that Hector's control of his bodily humors isn't as disgusting as it probably could be, but it works so far. I expect the truth behind the murders is going to be something personal rather than earth-shattering, so not getting too photo-realistic and serious with the art is a good call. Also, Cereno writes Hector as sort of an awkward goof, rather than a scarred, distant sentinel, and Hunter's art works with that. Hector can look cool, but can also make a fool of himself when he realizes he's a stranger in a small town, standing next to a corpse and talking to the sheriff.