Today's strip was about "Spine Buster" Batman, but it's far from the weirdest thing in the current Batman: Brave and the Bold wave of action figures. It's not even the only thing related to spinal injury infliction! There's also "Spine Shocker" Batman, who comes with a giant serrated taser weapon. And let's not forget "Chainsaw Attack" Batman who, yes, comes with a giant chainsaw. Batman's parents weren't killed by a giant chainsaw, so hacking his enemies' limbs off one by one is well within his moral code.

But, really, the strangest is "Kickpuncher" The Joker. I was in the middle of my honeymoon when my friend Graham alerted me to this toy's existence. It was that important. See, Kickpuncher is a B-movie superhero within the world of NBC's Community, which is absolutely the best thing on television. Kickpuncher's superpower is that his punches have the power of kicks. He is amazing and it is a crime that NBC's webstore has zero Kickpuncher merchandise.

"Kickpuncher" The Joker has to be a reference to Kickpuncher of NBC's Community.  I mean, come on.  What the hell else would explain this?  It's insane.  It's absolutely insane.  And it's so bittersweet.  Mattel was sure to put a "TM" symbol after Kickpuncher, so unless Mattel cranks out some Community toys, any Kickpuncher toy is gonna have some legal hurdles.  It's awesome and terrible at the same time.  My soul burns.

"Kickpuncher" The Joker comes with a giant hand-held Bat-shaped brass knuckles weapon.  It's obviously recycled from some previous Batman figure, because, well, it's a Bat-shaped brass knuckles weapon.  Which he holds like a gun or crossbow.  Look, I don't know.  Just go with it.

It doesn't seem fair, what with Batman coming after his spine with chainsaws.

[gallery]

So, like, I already knew this Bill Spencer guy was awesome because once upon a time he custom-built models of Nightbeat and Hot Shot's car modes. So he was definitely on my rader. (He also likes Batmobiles!)

But he showed up to New England Webcomics Weekend (NEWW) today with probably the best thing ever. He made me a Gardening Batman out of the old Kenner New Batman Adventures figure. It has a hat and a shovel and a potted plant. The whole damn thing is repainted, too, because that's just how hardcore he is.

Seriously. Like, holy crap. And I got so many friggin' compliments on him today. He is a hit. I have to, like, build a shrine to this thing or something. Dude.

I have dozens of other photos from Saturday to show you, but I want to make sure I give proper attention to this first.  I'll try to get those other photos up tomorrow if I can.  Lots of great commissions!

[gallery columns="2"]

I was also asked to draw Randy Milholland in somebody's book.  Joel Watson took a photo of it for me.

[gallery]

In which I don't think I have enough to say to create enough text to have two photos floating in it.

Hey, preorder the Robin statue!  I'm just gonna keep asking and asking until you do it, so you might as well.  It's the only way to shut me up.

Hey, look, it's more DC Direct stuff!  (Why haven't they done a series based on Amanda Conner's Powergirl material?  C'mon, dudes!)

First up is my Arkham Asylum "Battle Damaged" Batman.  I didn't even know he existed until the last day of Comic-Con.  Earlier in the week I'd seen the pristine AA Batman in the display case, noted he came out in about nine months, and then marked my mental calender to covet him later.  But then my pal Tony (aka Sarevock) came to me Sunday morning, noted he had a chance to get some Arkham Asylum Batman that was exclusive to the show, and hell yeah, yes, give me one of those.  I generally don't care for battle damaged stuff, but here's the thing.  Or things.  First of all, you spend like half the game looking like the battle damaged version of the toy.  So no big.  And second, dude, the non-battle damaged version comes out NEXT YEAR.  I'm pretty okay with getting the roughed-up version that much earlier.  I mean, dude.

He's what you expect in a DC Direct Batman.  Sorta stiff poseability, a stand, and some pretty paintwork.

The Stephanie Batgirl I'd been waiting for for a while.  Seriously, they solicit these things like a year in advance, it feels like.  I've been enjoying her comic, and I wanted one of her in plastic.  She comes with a stand, a batarang, and a nightstick.  The nightstick is way too skinny for her to hold in her hands, but I later discovered a stowing area on the back of her belt that it fits into pretty well.  Again, standard articulation.  And, yay, hooray, Stephanie, you're not dead!

The comic I drew about Optikk endeared him to me.  I had to have him.  Masters of the Universe figures are, in general, really fucking goofy, but Optikk, I feel, has some extra special goofiness that I enjoy.

1) He's an evil Space Mutant.  He's an evil Space Mutant that has a special sticker decrying his goofy Space Mutant-ness right next to where it says "ADULT COLLECTOR" on the packaging bubble.  (there is no shame here)

2) He's an eyeball man who can communicate his given name only through a series of blinks... despite having no eyelids.  He can't even speak his native language!  He is, for all intents and purposes, a mute eyeball man!

3) He is a mute eyeball man named Optikk with an eyeball-themed shield and an eyeball on the end of his raygun.  (A raygun, mind you, that has an external revolving bullet chamber.)

And he was originally a New Adventures of  He-Man villain, which I think was underappreciated.  Campbell "friggin'" Lane makes a charismatic Skeletor.  Hell, and with He-Man voiced by Garry Chalk, it's practically a Beast Wars voice cast precursor.

Optikk's articulation is what you'd expect from a 6-inch Mattel action figure.  His chest detail is actually a plastic vest attached around your default Masters of the Universe chest.  (That's right, he's got nipply pectorals under there.)  I read that his arms and legs are recycled from Trap-Jaw, but with them done up entirely in gold, it's not immediately obvious.  Sculpted into his back is a fake little dial that corresponds to the original Optikk toy's gimmick: if you turned the dial on his back, his eyeball would move back and forth.  On this figure, you can do that just by manually turning the head itself.

He comes with an extra red eyeball that you can swap in for the green one, if you so choose.  Apparently that's what color his eye was in the original cross-sell photography?  That's sort of neat, I guess.  I'm more in favor of it being an eyeball accessory for other figures.  Some of my Transformers have heads small enough that they can fit up into its balljoint socket, so that's some more hours of fun.

Since I missed out on buying Optikk myself because MattyCollector.com is a piece of shit,  a generous reader called Mysterious Stranger managed to grab me one and mail me it.  He requested that there be a photo of Batman punching him.  His wish has been granted.

Thanks, Mysterious Stranger!

I'm determined to get two books out this year.  Shortpacked! Book 3 is the preorder everyone should be familiar with by now, but Roomies! Book 2 better be out by the end of this year, too!  It's faaarr too soon to solicit it, since SP!B3 is still in production, but not too soon to finish putting it together.  An idea for the cover hit me last night, and no sooner than this afternoon I had it completed to my satisfaction.

Take it in.

Also, I was sorely in need of some freebies to hand out at C2E2, so I designed and ordered some double-sided bookmarks.  There's a strip on each side - my recent Skeletor/Luthor team-up strip for ToyNewsI seemed suitable, and of course you gotta have Batman DDR on there, so I cropped it down into the requisite number of panels to fit.  I'll be handing these out at Penguicon this weekend.  A huge purpose of convention-attending I've been neglecting is the romancing of new readers.  This'll help me fix that.  (If you're already a reader, you're still, of course, allowed to grab one.)

Since the new site went live, one of its most awesome features is the ability to order prints of individual strips simply by clicking the $ icon below each strip.  Ha ha ha, so obviously the first one that got bought was Mike's freaky smile creep show.  This is great, because I had to take this file into the print shop and have them give me strange looks as it comes up on the screen and again out of the printer.  How much is my dignity worth?  Apparently $10 and shipping.

And here's the last of my (published) pictures.  That's right!   There are photos worse than the ones from yesterday with all the mouth-pooping.

(They were blurry or boring.)

Argh.  Well, first, let me address everyone's missing weekend comics.  I had a Joyce & Walky! done days ago, but for some reason the old FTP wasn't working (J&W! is still at the old server) and I couldn't get that fixed before I left.  And I planned to draw TNI's strip at C2E2, but then I forgot about it.  D'oh.  Anyway, I'm a loser, and you'll have your comics when I get home and things are resolved and/or drawn.

Some of these images are kind of gross.  Three of them, in fact.  They are mere links, because, you know. (You may recall that Jeph Jacques and I have a "feud."  In fact, you obviously do recall, because you guys keep asking us to act on it in ways such as this.)   I recommend not clicking on the links that sound Not Safe For Work, because they undoubtedly are.

I'm asked to draw myself pooping in Jeph Jacques mouth.  Of course I'll draw that.

Same person got another book.  So this is Batman pooping in Commissioner Gordon's mouth, because why the hell not.

And Jeph responds.

Yay, I remembered to bring my camera cord back with me.  And my camera!  (That also helps.)  So have some pix.

Saturday's stuff I'll put up tomorrow!  Think of today as Friday night, but 24 hours later because I was stupid.

Sneak preview: KFC Double Down.  Mouth-pooping.