More WWE goodness

CHECK out this interview with the creators here.

Can you spell LAME?

.............................................I'm still gonna buy a copy tho.

I DON'T know what this has to do with love, but Simon Barnard's toon in the newly released The Tango Collection (edited by Bernard Caleo, publishers Allen & Unwin) has a wrestling theme, so here it is. The rest of the toons in this anthology are about love and romance, and are a mixed bag.

Wrestling comics I don't own (but wish I did)

THE following titles were found at the excellent MyComicShop.com, but are sadly out of stock (or a bit too expensive for my tastes). Can anyone help me?

Marvel Visionaries: Peter David: The Incredible Hulk Vol. 4 (Marvel, 2007):
DESCRIPTION: Collects Incredible Hulk #355-363 and Marvel Comics Presents #26 and #45 (from 1989-90). The Hulk vs gangsters, ghouls and the Grey Gargoyle! Plus wrestlers, killer whales and more!

Twisted Toyfare Theatre Vol. 8 (Wizard, 2007)
DESCRIPTION: Not technically a comic and not technically about wrestling. However, this mag collects episodes from Toyfare magazine's "Twisted ToyFare Theatre" comic strips. Join Mego Spidey and a random assortment of stormtroopers, wrestlers, werewolves and Cobra troopers in hilarious episodes (according to them anyway). Find out what happens when Smokey the Bear tries to tell Ric Flair how to go camping.

Tarzan #67 (Dell, April 1955)
DESCRIPTION: Tarzan stars in "The Wrestlers of Baronga". Is this pro-wrestling? Who knows?

Street Fighter II Turbo #6 (Udon, May 2009)
DESCRIPTION: Cover by Alan Wang. Written by Ken Siu-Chong. Art by Jeffrey 'Chamba' Cruz. Kick it into Turbo! The tournament moves stateside for the American finals, which are throwing down on the mean streets of Metro City. Expect all-out beat 'em up action as the cast of Final Fight collides with the world of Street Fighter! Plus, get a bonus Final Fight back-up story featuring pro wrestler-turned Metro City mayor Mike Haggar!

Mixtape Vol. 3 by Jim Mahfood (Image, Feb. 2009)
DESCRIPTION: This volume is all about the funky full-color illustrations featuring MAHFOOD's bizarre and unique characters, gorgeous girls, rock stars, b-boys, Mexican wrestlers, beat bees, and more.
Comic Library International Vol. 9: World's Greatest Christmas Comics! (CLI, 2002)
DESCRIPTION: Christmas-themed comics including El Mucho Grande, wrestler-for-hire, by Chris Yambar.

Dale Evans Comics #17 (DC, May 1951)

DESCRIPTION: Sierra Smith, Western Detective stars in back-up tale "The Rustled Wrestler!"

Haunted by Philippe Dupuy (Drawn & Quarterly, 2008)

DESCRIPTION: A collection of stories including a tale about lucha libre wrestlers.

Middleman Vol. 2 (Viper Comics, 2006)

DESCRIPTION: "Inevitability!" Written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach. Art by Les McClaine. 'Explosive' doesn't begin to cover this collection of The Middleman! Not only does it include the entire rip-snortin' adventure that is Volume Two, but also three all-new 'Legends of the Middleman' bonus stories - thrilling tales of the Middlemen of yore guest-illustrated by three of comics' hottest artists! Adventure! Excitement! Masked Wrestlers! It's all in here!

Street Fighter IV #1 (Udon, Feb. 2009)

DESCRIPTION: Cover by Arnold Tsang. By Ken Siu-Chong & Joe Ng A four-issue mini-series based on the most anticipated fighting game ever - Street Fighter IV! New challengers like mixed martial artist Abel, Mexican wrestler El Fuerte and chunky kung-fu fighter Rufus cross paths with Street Fighter mainstays Sakura, Dan, Charlie, and more.

Lucha libre goodness!

I RECENTLY hit the mother lode in lucha libre comicy goodness on eBay. From a Mexican dealer I picked up four ooooold mini-comics (smaller than A5 format) for a reasonable price.
Now, I can't speak a word of Spanish, but these were all kinda fun.

First up was a battered copy of Sensacional De Luchas A Color #183 from May 5, 1989 starring motherfucking Canek! This is one weird-ass comic. The first part is real Benny Hill-style low-brow humour. Canek beats up some dude in the ring while a blonde rat gets the ringside fans hot and bothered 'cos she's wearing a tiny skirt that barely covers her huge butt. Later, she and Canek hook up in his apartment.

Now, it seems the rat is also banging a psycho boxing champ. He likes to beat up chicks - and she seems to just take it (yay for Mexican feminism).

Eventually, the champ challenges Canek to a boxer vs wrestler match. Canek refuses for some reason, so the psycho beats up the rat again, then beats up Canek's little friend Pepe.

Canek snaps, accepts the challenge, then beats the holy shit out of psycho boxing champ. The end.

Nice art - even though anyone who bleeds is drawn as if they've poured half a bottle of tomato sauce up their nose.

I also scored three issues of Patadas Voladoras from July/August 1988. Very cartoony art and real simple storylines (with only 1-2 panels per page). Issue #6 (above) sees a bloke with a chicken mask take on a Mafia boss and also dispatches a ring-in wearing his mask. #10 is about a big, slow kid who runs away from his abusive home and becomes a masked champion. #11 is about two drunks who decide to score some easy drinking money by entering the squared circle...only it isn't as easy as it looks.

Of further quirky interest, the back cover of each issue features an ad for Perro Aguayo comic, which I need to track down at some point.

FROM the same dealer, I also bought a coupla recent lucha libre magazines. Why? 'Cos I love looking at pix of Mexican masked wrestlers...even if I can't understand a word what's written.

Both mags had some hidden gems. The August 2008 DosDeTres featured a two-page spread of lucha-themed panel gags (like the one above) by Antonio Garci. I'm sure they're hilarious in English.

Better still was the September 2008 issue of Record Luchas Mensual, which featured a four-page comic strip of Atlantis vs Blue Panther. All right! Story by Candelario Andrade and art by Daniel Perez.

There's quite a few lucha libre comics (or wrestling mags featuring lucha libre strips) on eBay at reasonable prices. I suggest you go check them out.

WWE Heroes #1 is coming...

WWE Comics, eh?

How come I keep having flashbacks to those hideous titles spewed out by Chaos! back in the late 90s? I guess I'll just have to buy a copy of WWE Heroes #1 when it comes out in March and see if it's as shit as I think it'll be.

The Hulk busts a move or two

ONE of my fave comics at the moment is Marvel Adventures Avengers and a recent issue only makes me love it more.

Avengers #32 (reprinted in Marvel Adventures Avengers Vol. 9: The Times They Are A-Changin') sees the team run foul of the IRS. To get off the hook, they're forced to tackle a bunch of super-villains who owe back taxes to the government.

At one point the team takes on The Absorbing Man who proceeds to absorb Iron Man's powers and kick everyone's collective arse...until The Hulk jumps on him, that is.

After that, there are several panels where, in the background, Hulk playfully puts Absorbing Man in a boston crab, then a Lex Luger-style torture rack.

Kudos to writer Paul Tobin and, more likely, artists Matteo Lolli and Christian Vecchia for the wrestling references.

Wrestling aside, I wholeheartedly recommend Avengers - which is funny and easy to read, but not dumb, despite having the "all ages" tag.

Anyone seen this in their travels?

IN THE "Thanks for the announcement, but we'll believe it when we see it" department, ex-rassler/nudie model April Hunter supposedly had a comic book coming out this summer (winter in Aussie time).

The hilariously named Pickle Press announced the release of a title called Code Red. In it, April plays a sexy mercenary hired to fight terrorists...or some-such nonsense.

Anyone seen it? Or did it go the same way as that infamous Tammy "Sunny" Sytch comic from the late 90s?

Feel free to post me a copy if you come across it.

Nexus #5 (January 1983)

I RECENTLY unearthed this gem as I'm going through a "Nexus-fucking-crazy" phase. Mike Baron's star-swept tale of an intergalactic avenger driven to execute mass murderers is an easy-to-read, rollicking, surprisingly lighthearted read (considering the at-times grim subject matter). Steve Rude's art was superb even during this early part of his career.

This wrestling-themed back-up tale, The Hammer, looks at the pre-avenging career of Nexus' friend and ally, Judah Maccabee. Seems Judah was a pro-wrestler. In this amusing, fluffy piece, Judah takes on Black Death McGee for the Super Heavyweight Championship while at the same time attempting "to bake his prize-winning salmon souffle between rounds".

Naturally, McGee is tougher competition than Judah expects, but the souffle unexpectedly comes in handy as a foreign object.

Silly stuff, but it suits the feel of Nexus. Great comic by the way...I'm gonna have to buy all of the back issues.

Madd about wrestling

I COULD have written a sarcastic entry about this comic, but the always-excellent Living Between Wednesdays did it sooooooo much better.

Even more classic Kinnikuman...

A BLOKE with a teacup on his head kicks arse. Hooray for insane Japanese comics!

Thanks to DVR for these pix.

Kinnikuman vs Dusty Rhodes....?

STOLE this English-translated version off the deathvalleydriver.com messageboard. Stardust prepares to face Kinnikuman!

Blue Beetle battlers

MY FAVOURITE comic blog Living Between Wednesdays has just run a feature on the less-than-successful career of DC supervillain Hellhound (basically, several guys wearing his costume have died ignoble deaths). Anyway, here's the info related to the above picture that caught my eye:

"And then this guy’s cousin and some dog-looking guy showed up in Blue Beetle...Don’t worry, I hadn’t heard of a title fight either. Evidently, it’s what happens when a super-villain kicks off and two or more guys want to fill his shoes for some reason. This is now imprinted on my brain - every time some R-grade bad guy gets shot in the head I’m going to picture seven guys meeting up outside of a bar in Toledo, all wearing their best Crazy Quilt or Planet Master outfits."

Rival Angels

IT'S no Whoa, Nellie! - but this women's wrestling web comic is not too shabby.

The Maniac...finished version

We have a new name...

YES, from now onwards this site is called Whooooooo! Wrestling comics, baby! and will focus on news stories, reviews, previews and pix of newly found and/or published wrestling comix.

The page's former title - The Encyclopaedia of Wrestling Comics - now belongs to a new site that will chronicle my original A to Z of rasslin'-themed comix published a few years back in my old zine, Betty Paginated. The site will be occasionally updated. It's currently a work in progress, so don't be surprised if there isn't much content up there at the moment.

If you want to read about NEW grappling-filled sequential art, come here. To check up on all the old stuff I wrote, go here and bookmark it.

One Way To Die

THIS Aussie-made comic actually has an MMA theme (albeit with sci-fi tinges), but the wrestling link is that it's been put out by PWA Queensland manager/commentator Nick XL.

The art looks primitive and I can't tell what the story's like. I hope to get my hands on a copy soon, so I can review it. Meanwhile, check out Nick'sweb site at http://www.xlcreations.com.au/index.html.

He's the newly crowned Southern Cross champion...

...AND now he even has his own web comic. The man is unstoppable.

Headlocked: A three-word review

IT'S worth getting.

The Hangman

Johnathan from the always-entertaining http://livingbetweenwednesdays.com/ posted an entry on April 18, Justify Your Existence: Batman Villain Edition, about various lame Batman villains from the 50s and 60s. This entry on The Hangman caught my eye:

"The Hangman made an appearance in Detective Comics No 355 as a wrestler who was undefeated and whose identity was unknown and had promised to reveal his identity if he was ever beaten in a fight.

"And then, the Hangman starts showing up all aroung Gotham - every time that Batman investigates a crime scene, the Hangman is nearby, running away or loitering suspiciously, and of course they fight and Hangman keeps beating Batman with his awesome wrestling moves and then keeps trying to take unconcious Batman’s mask off. Why all the strange behaviour, Hangman? (below)

"Augh! That’s a terrible reason to roam the city staging crimes (it turns out that he was staging the crimes, by the way) and picking fights with a super-hero!
The Hangman turns out to be Telman Davies, a TV newsman who has a secret life as a masked wrestler, just as they often do in real life. Remember the wrestling subplots on Murphy Brown? Classic."

Awesomely crap. Only in DC.

ZOMBIES vs ALIENS vs WRESTLERS?

THE latest issue of Comic Shop News (#1127) reports:

"Chad Heider, Darren Davis and Giovanni Timpano take readers back to the world of the worst sci-fi film ever made in Plan 9 From Outer Space...Strikes Again!, a March-release oneshot from Bluewater Productions.
Fifty years after the alien invasion unleashed the unspeakable horror of Plan 9, a corrupt team of government scientists reactivate the zombie horde in order to lure the aliens back to Earth.
Their sinister plan: steal the most hideous weapon known to intergalactic intelligence.
Only a conspiracy theorist and his mother, a former professional wrestler, can expose the shadowy agenda of the government as they fight off the growing zombie horde.
Yes, it sounds as wacky as the flm that inspired it!"