The Goon Noir

THERE'S a vague wrestling link in this collected edition of the three-part miniseries put out by Dark Horse last year.

In the tale Big Ma’s Hootenanny And Slack-Jaw Fighting (story Steve Niles, art Ryan Sook), The Goon and Franky break up an illegal backyard zombie fighting ring that’s loosely based on the once-huge backyard wrestling scene.

Hell, one of the slack-jaws is even wielding a chair in one scene.

The Sentinels

SOME nice wrestling references can be found in Rich Bernatovech and Luciano Vecchio's excellent graphic novel series The Sentinels.
Crusher (above) - real name Robert Beck - is a member of the latest incarnation of The Sentinels.
Tall, big, headstrong, he's seen as the resident meathead of the superhero group - not helped by the fact he's a wrestling fan who eventually entered the pseudo-sport to wrestle for the Global Grappling Network.
Robert's parents were members of the original Sentinels, who mysteriously disappeared years ago. He and his sister Samantha inherited their helmets which gave them their unique superpowers and they became Crusher and Firebomb.
Crusher's powers are superhuman strenth and near-invulnerability. He realised after a while that his powers remained for a short time even after removing the helmet.

Sadly, Crusher has retired pretty much from professional wrestling.

This fella (above) is Pitbull, a seasoned professional wrestler who turned to crime and joined the villainous group known as The Axis. They fought the first Sentinels for years without success.

After serving time in jail, Pitbull (or Dan McGinely as he was now known) went straight and eventually ran his own construction company. Sadly, his sordid past eventually caught up with him. Read the GNs to find out what happened to Pitbull.
Learn more about The Sentinels at http://www.sentinelsonline.com/.
And check out my review of the graphic novels here.

PREVIEW: Headlocked

THE writer on Headlocked, Mike Kingston, sent me a PDF preview of his new comic the other day. I've been following the title's progress for a few years and I'm glad to see it's set for release soon.
Headlocked is a 48-page comic looking at Mike Hartmann's dream to become a pro wrestler and hit the big-time in the World Federation of Wrestling (WFW) run by Spenser McLane (a thinly veiled version of you-know-who, I suspect).
Kingston promises to deal with Hartmann's trials and tribulations in the pseudo-sport in an honest, no-nonsense fashion, which will be a welcome change after putting up with so many shitty wrestling-themed comics over the years (and, yeah, I AM referring to you dicks at Chaos! Comics!).
Kingston's story is nicely illustrated by Randy Valiente. I'll reserve judgement until I see more of his work - especially how he draws action sequences - but the preview pages I've seen so far look pretty good.
For pre-ordering info, or to learn more about Headlocked, head to http://www.visionarycomics.com/v2/.
I'm sure I'll be writing more about this book in coming months.

Google me pink!

TYPE in “wrestling comics” in Google and before you hit a bunch of kinky sex web sites and eBay auctions for Marvel’s shitty early 90s WCW comics, you’ll find the following sites of interest:

http://www.thundergirls.com/

Thunder Girls isn’t just beefy babes wrestling each other for the DVD viewing pleasure of hundreds of lonely, middle-aged men. It’s also a line of wrestling comics starring the likes of Cheryl Rusa, Hollywood and Lady Victoria.

There are four Thunder Girls comix for sale at this site…if you’re interested in that sorta thing. Which I’m not. Um…sorta.

http://www.battlingbeauties.com/comics/hairref.html

You can buy even more of these overpriced mags – like “Hair, Ref!” at the above site.

Mmeh…maybe you should just jump straight to the kinky sex web sites, eh?

“Steel Pulse” rocks!

IT IS one of the greatest wrestling comics ever produced and you can now order it directly from http://www.squidworks.com/Mot/steelpulse.html.

And I’m not just plugging it again ’cos creator T. Motley runs one of my quotes from BP on the site. Well, maybe a little… :D

“Headlocked” is coming

I wrote about Headlocked ages ago in BP. It now seems the comic WILL finally be published by Markosia Enterprises (never heard of them, but anyway…).

The June 13 Wrestling Observer had the following news item:

“Reader/correspondent Michael Kingston has gotten a publishing deal for a pro wrestling themed comic book, with the star going through the seedy underbelly of wrestling. The series debuts in October with Headlocked: The Work of Art.”

The full story is at www.brokenfrontier.com/headlines/details.php?id=2936.

Mamma mia! It's Italian wrestling

I DON’T know much about this mag or even if it features any wrestling comics (or “fumetti” as the Italians like to call them). Wrestlers (Wrestling Comics Magazine) is put out by WLF Publishing, for 2.90 Euros. There’s a site that talks about the mag at www.scanner.it/strips/wrestling3203.php. I contacted them to see if I can order a copy, but I don’t hold out much hope of success.

Does anyone know anything about Wrestlers? I assume it came out to coincide with the recent WWE-led wrestling boom in Italy.

Someone wanna send me a copy or two so I can find out for sure?