Thacher E. Cleveland is a busy man. On top of a civilian life, he’s a contributing writer and columnist for PanelsOnPages.com, co-host of the Super-Fly Comics and Games PodCast, and is the writer of the surprise cult hit novella “Winston & Churchill Case” series. Available at Smashwords and Amazon, it’s a must-read for fans of supernatural and/or detective fiction.

With a new installment of the series just out, Thacher chatted with Geeks Of Doom via e-mail about “Winston & Churchill,” genre writing, the e-book market, and moving into comics writing.

Geeks Of Doom: I’d like to start with a sand bag of a question – The “Winston & Churchill” series? As an Irish-American why would I want to read about some British dude?

Thacher E. Cleveland: Very tricky, but the Irish American in you will be glad to know that the series isn’t about a British Prime Minister or any Brit at all, but two private investigators, Lexie Winston and Henry Churchill in Manhattan who specialize in occult investigations: demons, vampires and the like. So if you like supernatural adventure stories that don’t involve a cheesy romance then this is for you, despite my cheap attempt at a catchy title.

The Bionic Man #20
Written by Aaron Gilespie
Art by Rey Villegas
Colors by Thiago Ribeiro
Letters by Simon Bowland
Special Thanks to Phil Hester
Covers by Mike Mayhew & Ed Tadeo
Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: May 15, 2013
Cover Price: $3.99

The Bionic Man #20 picks up right where the last issue left off. We’ve got Steve halfway around the world, trying to stop the launch of a missile that could do some irreparable damage.

Aaron Gilespie is really hitting his groove on this title. He’s constantly gotten better and better at writing this book. In the past, his plots have been less than spectacular, but now they’re actually really interesting and entertaining. Combine that with some great dialogue for Steve Austin and you’ve got a very enjoyable comic. This issue in particular, might be his best yet. His portrayal of Steve is really well done, with all the classic hallmark humor, and intensity that Lee Majors brought to the role almost 40 years ago. Well done Mr. Gilespie!

Electronic Arts is not the most popular company around at the moment. In fact, they were just voted the worst company in America for the second year in a row. This is largely due to their relentless pursuit of more money via microtransactions and their attempts at trying to control consumers with the Online Pass system—a system that requires you to enter a code in order to play one of their games online, effectively stopping people from buying used games (unless you wanted to pay an extra $10 for a new code) or borrowing them from a friend.

People have been enraged about these things for a while now, and have let EA know it every chance they’ve had, including with the consecutive worst company titles mentioned above. But it appears the company is listening to these complaints and are looking to do some repair work.

It’s been confirmed by EA that they will no longer being using the Online Pass system in future games, which should mean that you’ll be able to use all of one of their games’ features after you buy it, new or used.

By Amy Vernon

Look, I’m no fan of the whole “Disney Princess” canon. I’m not even sure most of them are actually princesses, but that’s really splitting hairs.

I usually don’t give it much thought, though, except to betray my feminist leanings and be glad I have boys and don’t have to deal with shelves of pink when we go to the toy store (let’s face it, I’d still be shopping in the toy car and superhero section even if I had girls).

But when news broke the other week that Disney was adding Merida from Brave to its princess collection, I was a bit taken aback at the image I saw.

Gone was the frizzy hair. The dress they put her in was the shiny, princess-y one she hated in the movie, not her preferred garb. Her eyes were rounder and had a certain come-hither look to them. Suddenly, her waist was Barbie-sized and she had breasts.

Gosh, I guess she grew up fast.

The Green Hornet #2
Written by Mark Waid
Art by Daniel Indro
Colored by Marcio Menyz
Letters by Troy Peteri
Covers by Paolo Rivera & Jonathan Lau
Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: May 15, 2013
Cover Price: $3.99

The Green Hornet #2 easily holds up the standard set by Mark Waid and company in the first issue, and in some respects, surpasses it. This book is the perfect gateway to get people introduced into Dynamite’s excellent Pulp Heroes world that they’ve spend so much time setting up.

Is there any comic that Mark Waid can’t write? I mean, seriously. After spending years reading his work on super hero books, and loving them, I expected something TOTALLY different from what’s he’s given us with this book. The result? I couldn’t be happier. And neither will you, when you start reading this. What surprises me most about this comic is that Waid makes the the Green Hornet an ACTUAL villain. Not a “let me confuse the police and then do the right thing,” no. He’s an actual, honest to God villain. Villains are normally not very pleasant people, but most gangsters had a certain gentleman’s code that they lived up to. Not so for the Green Hornet. He’s the baddest of the bad. And he spends the majority of this issue proving it.