The Black Diamond/Smoke and Guns makes "The Hotness" over at ign.com and I could not agree more. "Larry Young is about to go Beyond the Thunderdome and we're eager to ride shotgun." and "There's something sexy about a cigarette girl pulling an Uzi from a box full of cigarettes." were particular faves.

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Jim McGrath, he of the Jumbotron 6000, loves him some Full Moon Fever.

H at The Comic Treadmill promises the possibility of a duel between he and Mag about Filler as soon as Mag reads it. Guys, send me Mag's address and I'll put one in his hands.

Over on the Isotope Virtual Lounge, mi amigo Matt Fraction posts the complete script for the Sky Ape/Rex Mantooth! crossover. Click to experience the magic.

Take that, Joe Kubert and Howard Chaykin! Randy Lander at The Fourth Rail gives the nod to Rick Spears and Rob G. for its Best of the Week: "Filler is a twist on a crime genre classic, but it's also a story of what happens when you get caught in a sequence of events bigger than yourself. It moves along at the perfect pace, serving up plenty of twists and surprises and a couple of really memorable characters, and ends with the reader smiling as big as the characters who win at the end."

IGN reviews Bad Mojo:"...readers looking for a well-told and well-illustrated story about bad decisions, bad people and bad luck should definitely take a look."

Dorian's got some words about Filler, wherein he shows what a close reading on the text will get you: "And finally, the last page reveal, which I'm reluctant to go into too much detail on, is either a very cheap gag or a very smart way to clue the reader in to what really has been going on in the entire book. I'm leaning towards the latter, because it adds a nice conclusion to the story. John Dough thought he was filler, became the subject of the story, and resolved his part in the story by becoming filler again. With the revelation of who was really behind everything that happened in the book, it becomes clear that, actually, John Dough was always just a player in someone else's story. A temporarily important player, but not ever the lead he was afraid of becoming."

...and Ken Lowery asks the "Why was this story made? What was the point, really?" question that we get every once in a while. As a dude who got the point of Planet of the Capes, I'd have thought Lowery would have an answer for himself he'd share with his audience instead of ask for an answer so plaintively.

Where High Octane Muscle-Car Mayhem
And Trigger-Happy Cigarette Girls Meet

No doubt you've already heard about Black Diamond, the whiplash-inducing high-octane adventure that takes place on quasi-futuristic elevated interstate system by muscle-car aficionados Larry Young and Jon Proctor. And you've certainly already heard about Smoke And Guns, the original story about warring gangs of heavily armed girls who sell cigarettes for a living and buy bullets for protection from rival districts by Brazilian artist Fabio Moon and the Isotope's own Kirsten Baldock, who just so happens to be a former cigarette girl herself.

Sure you've heard about it, but have you seen it?

Well now you can! Find out what the buzz is about for yourself thanks to this massive 16 page PDF preview of AIT/PlanetLar's most hotly anticipated book of the summer the Black Diamond/Smoke & Guns Flip Book.

Click here to Download

With orders for this book due in just over a week it's not too late to call your local retailer and demand a copy of this book. You can reach the Isotope's Black Diamond/Smoke & Guns Flip-Book Hotline at (415) 753 - 3037. For more information click here.

That Pop Culture Gadabout, Bill Sherman, totally gets the scope and context of Filler and reviews it thusly. Me, I much prefer reading reviews of comics where the critic looks at what is and what's attempted instead of what he wants the work to be. Much more satisfying for everyone concerned: "Part of the pleasure of stories like this rests in our watching the protagonist take steps that we and they know are gonna get them in trouble – but they take those steps anyway. Filler remains true to that formula."

The Black Diamond: On Ramp artist Jon Proctor loads up and fires in his interview over on The Pulse.

This is the artist, his missus, and TBD fan Thora Birch. If I had any sense I'd write a sassy waitress part into the book pronto.

Johnny B waves his martini glass at Filler: "Of course, the most obvious comparison to make, especially at this moment in time, is that this is just a knockoff of Sin City or even 100 Bullets - but that's both true and not true. Sure, this occupies the same territory, but writer Rick Spears and artist Rob (The Couriers) G don't give us the pervasive cynical negativism that Frank Miller brings to nearly everything he does, and that's a big plus for me. Still, John's situation ends up reminding us of Marv and Goldie, and the events depicted certainly do follow that bloody-noir template."

JK at Trash Heap uses a honkin' big scan of the Filler cover to tout this week's new releases, and writes simply: "Rick Spears and Rob G are awesome."

...and longtime Dunkin' Donuts pusher August De Blieck, Jr. calls Filler "a deceptively simple and gripping story... Rick Spears' script is sparse, but packed with punches... Rob G's art relies much less on the action-packed manga-oriented style that he usually uses... simply put, Rob G's finest artistic moment."

Filler is in finer comic stores everywhere tomorrow.

Noted art-comix worshipper Alan David Doane finds Filler "...not terrible, but it's not terribly good, either." which is miles above what I thought he'd think given his proclivities. Maybe there's hope for the old boy, yet: "If you can imagine Frank Miller needing to hire out Rick Spears and Rob G to put together a quick fill-in Sin City story, you'll have some idea of what Filler feels like. The stark black and white, with red used as a spot color, clearly evokes Miller's most recent style. The gritty crime story, filled with double-crosses and hookers and violence, similarly feels of a piece with Sin City."

...and even February's book is still making piratical waves: Brian Cronin at Comics Should Be Good opines "The commentary confused me though. I think I would have preferred a 2-page bonus story more than FOURTEEN pages of commentary. Especially when there is commentary before each issue and commentary throughout the Vampirella story. And then fourteen MORE pages of commentary? Seemed silly." To which I say, "'Seemed silly,' indeed." in a sort of bad David Niven.

Rick Spears and Rob G's Filler is out this Wednesday, and the reviews are coming in: Publisher's Weekly says: "A game attempt by the creators of Teenagers from Mars to out-Sin City Sin City, this work traces the misfortunes of a lowlife so anonymous that his name is John Dough, who makes his living as "filler" in police lineups. Dough gets involved with Debra Cross, a hooker with a heart of darkness and a black eye; Cross and his attempt to rescue her from her vicious pimp gets him beaten to a pulp and framed for murder. But Dough and a writer friend fight back, by way of a couple of rather unusual metafictional twists. This book's look is as noir as they come and clearly inspired by Frank Miller--it features thick, oozing blotches of black and shocking patches of red, straight lines arrayed into menacing sets of bars everywhere, and an entire cast of lowlifes with chiaroscuro-heavy faces who look like they've actually never seen better days, and never will. The moodiness of Rob G.'s artwork makes up for some of his drawings' dubious anatomy, and the story's Grand Guignol torrents of misery and gore eventually become kind of funny. The strength of the book isn't in its bluntly obvious symbolism or over-the-top grimness, though: it's Spears and Rob G.'s smooth, deliberate storytelling."

Joe McCulloch writes: "Glancing at the back cover of this book, you're instantly faced with a grimacing fellow, flask in hand, his head all dark with shadow, the bandages covering his face gleaming a bright pure white. You can be forgiven for thinking that this book will be wearing a certain comics influence directly on its sleeve, but I see it more as clever marketing."

The Comic Queen, Erin Schadt, takes a read of True Story Swear to God: 100 Stories. "*Sigh* Tom Beland's work is sooo dreamy. This is what I might as well write, because reviewing Beland's work is basically a gush-fest. He's just so damn good at what he does, I seriously can't find anything to complain about. I hate that."