March 19

The Bounty Hunter

What it's about: In this very special episode of "Friends," special guest star Gerard Butler pops up as one of Rachel's (Jennifer Aniston) old flames! And then he tries to take her to a jail that's apparently about 600 miles away! Banter abounds! Understandably, Ross is really cheesed off!

What to expect: I'm just taking a wild guess here, but I'm going to say they are both murdered.

Repo Men

What it's about: Two dudes who reposess artificial organs that people can't afford (Jude Law and Forest Whitaker) get into a terrible tussle with irony.

What to expect: Two things. 1) That this movie to become best known for not being a sequel to the awesome Emilio Estevez movie from the '80s and 2) for the most believable thing about it to be that Jude Law and Forest Whitaker grew up together.

Continue reading "March 2010 Movie Preview, Part 2" »

11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Regular Girl

Who Is She?: The Regular Girl is, we don't know. However, you do! You probably met her as your secret identity while renting a movie, shopping for canned cheese, or sipping black coffee in a Starbucks. Or, you met her while advancing your next world domination scheme and she fell in love with your villainous side. Whoever she is, she's certainly not a superhero! And she's interested in you for you!

What Do I Get Her?: (1) Jewelry (2) A Romantic Dinner (3) You not getting arrested while on said dinner

What Could Go Wrong?: Everything, to a lesser extent. That's good news for you. Sure, she may turn you down for dinner or toss your card into the gutter (that bitch), but you won't be thrown into the sun. Or, hey, you could take her as a hostage (see above). Even better is that you can use your supervillainous successes to bestow upon her gifts she would never, ever receive from anyone she knows. She also gets to tell all her friends about her "dangerous" new boyfriend. So, unless she rats you out to the heroes or ditches you when she finds your mask in your hamper, you have a real chance at love! And, if she fell in love with your costumed self, all the better. Unless she really was a Superheroine secret identity. That just sucks.

Example: Harleen Quinzel (Batman: The Animated Series)

Continue reading "The Women We Know: A Guide to Supervillain Girlfriends, Part 2" »

4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As promised, here's a sample chapter from HATE YOU FOREVER: HOW TO CHANNEL YOUR RAGE INTO EFFECTIVE SUPERVILLAINY, which is available for purchase right now!

This chapter will help you develop the supervillainous persona that will get you noticed in the increasingly crowded field of professional villainy. It also has some stuff about corporations that might get us sued!

So download the free PDF, give it a read, and if you like it, go here to buy the book for the low, low price of $12.95 or here to download it for a measly 10 bucks.

12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NOTE: The clip below and the moments described contain SPOILERS for "Chinatown." So if you haven't seen it, go watch it. For reals.

Who: Noah Cross (as played by John Huston)

What: Being a cold son-of-a-bitch when private eye Jake Gittes confronts him over the murder of his business partner and daughter's husband.

When: January 1974

Where: Chinatown (the movie, not the place)

Why it's a great moment: When "Chinatown" reaches it climax and you discover that Evelyn Mulwray's sister/daughter is really both her sister and her daughter, you come to the realization it would take a cold motherfucker (or in this case, daughterfucker) to do something like that.

And then a few scenes later, the cold bastard that is Noah Cross strides in, is confronted with everything he's done (including killing Evelyn's husband, who just happened to be his business partner) and he just takes it all in stride. Then, he tells the hero all about his master plan to have control over all the water in L.A. And to top it off, he keeps mispronouncing the dude's name.

That's some supervillain shit right there. And for that, we salute him.

Got a suggestion for one of villainy's greatest moments -- in comics, movies, books, TV, video games, whatever? Drop us a line at submissions@the-iss.com.

7:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Sunday, Amazon.com damn near exploded when giant omnibus editions of Marvel and other comics started popping up on the site for $15 or less. Turns out it was a glitch and most of the orders won't be honored (otherwise, Diamond Comic Distributors would probably go bankrupt).

Understandably, people started buying in huge amounts and folks with associates accounts (like our little stuffed bull buddy, Bully) started promoting the hell out of the apparent sale, including a prominent online "journalist" who I won't name because he spends his whole day Googling his name rather than doing any worthwhile reporting. Let's just say he's English, he likes to sell the comics he writes through his "news" column and we've mentioned him before.

So, he linked some of the sales on his "news" site through his associates account. That's not exactly what we'd think of as objective or ethical reporting, but, hey, comics bloggers gotta make money where they can, right? I mean, at least he wasn't using the resources from his news site to brag about how much he made off the thing, right?

Oh, wait.

Continue reading "The ISS Takes on: Internet Comics Journalism and the Amazon Price Glitch" »

1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

HATE YOU FOREVER. You can buy it.

We'll post a chapter preview later this week for those who are... hesitant.

(For those who are allergic to Lulu, it'll be available on Amazon in a couple weeks.)

3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March is here for us supervillains. But what exactly does that mean? Well, if you're the villain who celebrates love in some sort of way, then you have to get busy since March is the official month of love (as soon as our calendar takes effect - get on board early). You may already have your romantic target in your sights, or she might already be in your bedroom. No matter the case, she probably expects you to get/do something in celebration of your evil love. In order to help (hinder) your endeavors we have compiled a list of 8 different types of women supervillains commonly meet. Simply match your woman to the one in the list below and, viola, you now have an idea of what to get her this month. If the list doesn't assist you in some way, drink enough Drank until it starts to make sense. Then, drink some more until every word is a laser bolt of epiphany straight to your prefrontal cortex. Once that happens, get out there and maximize your chances at love.

Continue reading "The Women We Know: A Guide to Supervillain Girlfriends, Part 1" »

4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Oh, neat. Is that anything like I-Stan-Boys, the site for young men who aspire to be like Stan "The Man" Lee, where they learn to talk in hilariously overblown language and how to take recognition away from artists?

So, CCBill is like your Jack Kirby, right? Like, "Stylin'" CC Bill! Or CC "Best" Bill!

Oh, that...went in a direction I wasn't expecting.

Here's a question for you: If it's hot, how is it then a "best kept secret?" I guess you mean, like, sexy hot instead of popular hot. I mean, who wants to be popular hot? It's so overrated, right?

Continue reading "ISS Mailbag: IstanBoys" »

8:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)