Unbeatable TPB
Written & Created by Matthias Wolf
Art by Carlos Gomez
Colors by Simon Bork & Teodoro Gonzalez
Letters by Chris Studabaker
Razor Wolf Entertainment
Cover price: $14.95; Available now

One of the great things about being a reviewer — no matter what you’re reviewing — is that it really forces you out of your comfort zone. It puts things in front of your eyes that perhaps you wouldn’t normally give a look. Sometimes you go through it and realize that your instincts were right and whatever it was wasn’t your cup ‘o tea. But sometimes you find something fresh and new that makes you re-evaluate how you decide to look at things. For me, Unbeatable was the latter.

On the surface, Unbeatable appears to be like so many other manga-influenced books out there today. The art is stylized, the colors are bold, and the action is prevalent on nearly every page. It’s only when you get into the story that you realize this book is so much more. It’s a fully realized origin story. And in today’s comic market, finding an entire graphic novel that focuses on developing a character’s origin is a big ‘ol breath of fresh air.

Beowulf — The Game
Genre: Action/Adventure
ESRB Rating: Rated M
Developer: Ubisoft
Platform: Xbox 360
Price: $19.99; Released: Nov 2007

In the interest of full disclosure, I never saw the CGI motion-cap Beowulf flick. So I wasn’t going into this game with any expectations, good or bad. I wasn’t hoping it would live up to the movie; nor was I hoping it would be better than the movie”¦ I just wanted a fun, action-packed game that allowed me to run around and kick ass in epic style fashion. After all, this is based on the poem that pretty much inspired every epic fantasy story ever told.

Disappointment sucks.

All of the pieces should have been in place – Epic story (no real need for writing), CGI Mo-Cap created characters that should have been easy enough to model for a Next Gen system, and plenty of great 3rd person action games to pick and choose control schemes from. So how is it that the developers dropped the ball on all accounts? Is it laziness, lack of understand, or just another example of a game studio being forced to rush out another piece of crap game to try to tie into a major movie release. The answer seems obvious, doesn’t it?

The Legend of Joe Moon #1
Story by Gonzalo Ventura
Art by Manuel Silva and Leonardo Silva
Letters by Martin Blanco
Pit Bros. Productions
Cover price: $2.00; Available now

Chapter 1: “Only the whisky takes away the taste of death”

Right off the bat, I’ve gotta say that any stories dealing with vampires, zombies, or werewolves are a tough sell. Anyone that’s a fan of stories with one (or all) of these creatures has their own preconceived notions about how they should go.

“Vampires should be sensual creatures full of gothic lust“¦”

“Zombies should never be able to run”¦ “

“Werewolves only transform during a full moon “¦”

I could go on and on. And whenever a story strays from people’s preconceived notions, that story is quickly dismissed. So, as a storyteller, you’re always stacking the deck against youself whenever you decide to use creatures so near and dear to people’s hearts.

The Legend of Joe Moon is a werewolf yarn wrapped inside of a Western. The hero of the story is a man with living with a terrible beast inside of him, a beast he can’t control. And when the beast comes out, people die. He’s a drifter, wandering from town to town, collecting rewards on wanted men and moving on because, inevitably, the beast is going to come out, and he’s going to be hunted… Simple, straightforward storytelling, and it’s done extremely well.