10. Planet Hulk: The Illuminati, a secret gathering of the world’s most powerful “super” people including Charles Xavier and Tony Stark, forge a plan to rid the world of the increasing threat presented by the Hulk, aka dr. Bruce Banner. But their plan to shoot him into space leaves the Hulk on a vicious alien planet to which he ultimately becomes king. It sounds bizarre, I know, but it is a truly dynamic and epic story.
9. The Long Halloween: Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent spend a year trying to bring the mysterious killer known only as “Holiday” to justice, but at what cost? This story is so well written it was ultimately one of a handful of comic inspirations for Christopher Nolan’s Batman films.
8. The Watchmen: Anyone who is into comic books will tell you that “The Watchmen”, written by Alan Moore, one of the most notoriously strange writers in the comic world, is one of the greats, and it is. It’s actually so complex and so engrossing that it’s hard to describe. It broke a whole mess of ground, set a new standard for the comic medium and to this day seems to be without peer in many ways. Movie looks cool too.
7. The Tick (The Naked City): This collection of Ben Edlund first few Tick comics is easily one of the funniest things I’ve read in my life. It is comically timed and drawn to such utmost perfection that you have to read it over and over again.
6. The Walking Dead (Vol.1): I was in a comic shop in California that had little index cards beneath popular titles to summarize the kind of book it was to new readers. The one under Walking Dead said something like: “A character driven post-apocalyptic zombie soap opera that is as addictive as crack”, and I’m not sure I’ve heard it described better. This is one of few books that leave even my wife hanging for the next installment like it was an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
5. Bone (One Volume Edition): Most people describe Bone as “bugs Bunny meets Lord Of The Rings” and that’s kind of right, but maybe not enough. This is a 1,200-page epic that takes perfectly done elements of cartoon and adventure fantasy and smashes them together amazingly.
ricky and dallas compete in a red bull chugging contest. caleb from attack ataack joins in and comes in second place with 5 red bulls. ricky drinks 6. dallas? 2.
played tomfest. watched mxpx. spent a day with some cute kittens. drove to roseburg oregon and played the best show of the tour so far (thanks roseburg). chased each other around with dookie in a bag. stayed with nice/interesting folks who anointed us with oil. drove through montana and wyoming... saw the sun rise in montana while driving. played a legion hall in wyoming. drove to denver, woke up in a barnes and noble parking lot. went inside and read new avengers. got a call from bank of america about a huge negative balance, went online and looked at our account to find we had become the victims of identity theft. someone in tokyo has taken over $10,000 dollars from showbread running us a gigantic negative balance. no banks of america in denver (why?). had chipotle with new friend staphanie with compassion international, struck up a showbread/compassion team and learned a lot. none of the other bands showed for the show in denver so the venue canceled the show. apologized to kids. went to see new film by alex aja (high tension, hills have eyes) called "mirrors". ricky, patrick and i enjoyed it, landon and abi despised it. drove overnight to utah. hung out in borders and hastings. read more new avengers and an awesome graphic novel called "pride of Baghdad" (check it out). played a "no uniform" show in front of about 6 or 7 kids, had fun. drove overnight to southern california. stopped at bank of america and talked to reps, filed a claim and an investigation is underway, hopefully we will get our money back, God will provide. went to AWESOME comic shop in laguna niguel called "Nuclear Comics". got new walking dead, secret invasion, astonishing x-men and batman. landon and ricky got lost on some scooters in the wilderness and came back with road rash. we sat in a hot tub at our good friend kendall's who always takes great care of us. ate delicious tri-tip steak courtesy of kendall's grill. woke up today ready to go play the legendary whiskey a go-go in hollywood tonight for a second time.
in-laws house and went to sleep. sleep feels good. got up and drove to tacoma to play a fun show. came back to in-laws to play wii fit and eat spaghetti before resting up for tomfest tomorrow.
ricky gets ready for raw.
got to the show and found out none of the other bands showed up. promoter moved us to a venue down the street where we opened for hawthorne heights and armor for sleep. this was all well and good, but the highlight was of course was del taco. next stop: phoenix. the hottest place in the country... and introducing to the merch table, what could easily be the coolest showbread shirt we've ever had (see final picture)...
