#067 - "I am Benedict Cumberpatch."

Yes, we know the name is misspelled, that's part of our charm. Go check out Super Cute, our webcomic with Brent Hibbard! Twitter has got it, man, it's GOT IT. Email hideousenergy@gmail.com and tell us what it's like in awesome and faraway places. Facebook has both us and Super Cute. Fanoff is ohhh so pretty. Tumblr knows what you want, and gives it to you. Check out our exclusive content over on Why Not Indie? You can download MP3s of us from Fan Off and also through iTunes!

Episode #067:
• Intro - You are listening to a tale of old, an adventure in progress; you are listening to Hideous Energy! Go to Discount Comic Book Services and buy some comics for amazing prices. The adventure continues.
• Topic Thunder - This is really just blended into the introduction because we're spontaneous. We discuss the DC cancelled books; Rob Liefeld; how FX maybe passed on the "Powers" TV show; and the new DC logo.
• You Should Read This - We discuss Zegas by Michel Fiffe in a little more detail. Go check it out, and scroll down to read more about the book!
• Read 'Em and Weep - Invincible #87 by Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley; Whispers #1 by Joshua Luna; and Scarlet Spider by Chris Yost and Ryan Stegman.
• Outro - Byeeeee.



David Hopkins and Austin Wilson battle the elements. Go check out our webcomic with Brent Hibbard, Super Cute (supercutecomic.com). Download more Hideous Energy episodes through iTunes or Fanoff.com and paint your face like a demon.

Zegas by Michel Fiffe

A lot of stuff happens over on the Hideous Energy Twitter account, some of it pretty ridiculous, some of it serious. Recently, with a little help from a huge amount of Manga David and I have been reading, my mind has been searching for genres and/or subjects that I would love to see featured in a comic. During the surge of Manga we came into contact with books about wine, baseball, characters trying to create their own manga, and astronauts. I wanted to experience this same huge palette of subjects with American comics, and started my journey thinking about all the possibilities. Mostly I just ended up thinking about a comic based on that TV show River Monsters.

Dustin Hoffman's character says in the film Stranger Than Fiction that there are really only two types of stories, comedy and tragedy, and even without using that theory as a jumping off point I realized that in reality American comics are doing a pretty good job of touching various genres (whether there be two or more). What we were really looking for were comics from creators who were willing to explore subjects as varied as all those potential readers out there, a different kind of story for a different kind of life. The problem wasn't that American comics about certain subjects didn't exist, the problem was that they weren't going to be as widely available as books about punching and explosions are. If we were willing to do some serious searching we could find American comics that cover it all, and although our search is not over (and most likely never will be), here are two good examples of books that dare to be different.

Artist Michel Fiffe is one of our favorite results from the search for new comics. Found through Comics Alliance, Zegas is almost a fever dream of color and stylized art that at times borders on abstract, but never strays far from the medium's trope of sequential storytelling. Rather than relying on his fantastic art alone to engage the reader, Fiffe supplies short stories about characters who are doing the one of the most interesting and intense things possible: experiencing life. Zegas is a book detailing the lives of two specific people, namely Boston and Emily Zegas. Fiffe describes the book by saying: "Boston and Emily Zegas are orphaned siblings living together in a dreamlike backdrop where they deal with sex and death, not necessarily in that order. It's a color coded slice-of-life story set on the stylized platform I've designed from the ground up. The architecture, the fashion, the law of physics may be not familiar, but the character dynamics are. Also in [the] second Zegas issue I introduce 'Habanna '76,' a semi-autobiographical account that takes a close look at my own family's history and the neighborhood I was born in. 'Habanna' is different from the main Zegas feature in regards to staging, context, and tone, but it's a complementary addition to the main feature."

The beauty of the art, combined with the prospect of watching these characters discover themselves (or try to forget) makes this a book you need to check out. Another amazing aspect of Zegas is the story of its journey to your hands, which Fiffe details on his RocketHub project page, explaining, "Zegas is a comic book series that I...launched last year in an effort to fully realize the kind of thing I've always wanted to create: a full color one-man anthology comic serializing a main feature while having room to cultivate additional content." He continues by saying the book is, "...a series of stories held together not only by style or by theme but by print. After all, it's the personalized nature of a printed comic and its physical properties that can make a reading experience like no other. I can't wait to get deeper into the world of Zegas with this format, using an approach where both the content and its tangible vehicle are treated with the respect they deserve. What can I say? I love the feel, the function, and even the smell of a comic as an accessible objet d'art."

We couldn't agree more. When you hold Zegas in your hands it has the unique feeling of something created, of being hand-crafted. The art plays into this sensation somewhat, as it is nearly (see this Fiffe's post about process for the only digital portions) all hand illustrated and colored. Please go check out Michel Fiffe's site, and give serious thought to donating toward the production of Zegas #2.