Excuse

Jim Gibbons is a comic book fan, pop culture enthusiast and hirsute raconteur. He’s also a sworn enemy of the peanut. These are his debonair ramblings on the aforementioned subjects, and more!

Also, a great many aspects of the man who is Jim were fashioned through ten summers of camp life. Most of Jim’s best stories, and many of his happiest memories, come from the time he spent at summer camp. Read more about them at his summer camp memoir Nothing More American.

My Favorite Comic Covers: The First Installment!

Hey folks!
For no reason whatsoever, I remembered one of my favorite comic covers of all time and looked it up (it popped up in my head, so I followed the urge to take another look at it). Seeing it again got me pretty psyched and I wanted to share it…and thus this little blog feature showcasing my favorite covers begins!

The first inductee into my miniature “Hall of Some Recognition” is Wolverine (Vol. 2) #2 by Esad Ribic.

Not only does this cover come from back when Greg Rucka was kicking major ass on this title, but I think the image just speaks to anyone who’s ever felt beaten-down and misunderstood in their life, yet choose not to let it defeat them. Plus, it’s just a fantastic visual that really does a lot to illustrate the character of Wolverine—a guy who crops up everywhere—in a new (at the time) and interesting way, and those two aspects are the makings of a great cover that’ll always be among my favorites!

And so it begins…

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, comic fans and movie aficionados, readers one and all, welcome to the very first post of The Loudest Monkey!

Seeing as this is the start of things, let’s begin at the beginning: I’m Jim Gibbons, Wizard Universe’s News Editor, and if you’ve clicked the “blogs” link and decided to check out this probable demonstration of my inevitable complete immersion into the internet resulting in my own insanity, well thanks! It’s gonna be a blast!

Now, you may be wondering where a blog on a comics, entertainment and pop culture Web site gets off calling itself The Loudest Monkey, and unless you’re a zoologist or just knowledgeable of the animal kingdom, you’d be right to wonder.

Commence “clever blog title” explanation!
A gibbon is an ape that is known for its extremely vocal nature—the loudest shrieker in the jungle, if you will—I’m Jim Gibbons, and thus the name was created.

Ok, yes, a gibbon is technically an ape and not a monkey (lack of a tail signifies this for those of you taking notes), but “the most oral ape” just sounded a bit too perverse. So, the blog is The Loudest Monkey, good clean fun for everyone!

“What’s the theme behind a blog with a name like The Loudest Monkey?” I assume you might be asking yourself. Marvelous question!

As we carved out some blogs for Wizard Universe with a clear purpose—for example check out, team captain of Thursday Morning Quarterback, Andy Serwin’s recommendation blog Dr. Hot Read or David Paggi and Kiel Phegley’s jaunt off the mainstream with Indie Jones when you’re done here—I pitched The Loudest Monkey as an offbeat title to a blog for myself, Editor-in-Chief Scott Gramling chuckled at the name and here we are. So, I plan to have the potential directionlessness of a blog with a jungle-themed title allow me some free license to have one heckuva fun time on the interweb! Hopefully, one you’ll enjoy as readers as much as I foresee myself enjoying it as a writer.

Among the fun…
• Views, reviews and commentary on comics!
• Collections of my favorite quotes and comments from the Wizard Universe Message Boards!
• Answers to questions from readers like you about Wizard Universe, Wizard HQ and your hairy host!
• A rundown of the week’s top stories that you might have missed from WizardUniverse.com!
• And more…pictures, videos, things of other importance and probable hilarity!

On a serious note, let me say that when you’re reading this blog you can always expect the utmost honesty and sincerity from me. You won’t catch me ragging on a lot of books when I review or discuss things here, because frankly, there’re plenty of great comics out there so why would I waste my time writing about ones I don’t care for? I’d rather have a good time writing about a book I really dig, but that doesn’t mean there’ll be any pretense about it. If I say I like it, I do and you can trust me on that. I can’t answer every question submitted to me, but when I do answer I won’t bullsh– you, I don’t have the time. I’ll goof around and joke plenty, but when it’s all hashed out, I’m an honest fella and I can’t blog any differently than that.

Ok, lastly, I have to give a huge thanks to my good friend Seaby Bess for drawing the Loudest Monkey logo featuring the monkeyed-up caricature of me! I asked, gave some vague description of what I had in mind and he delivered—big time. And did it all out of the good of his heart for an old buddy, asking nothing in return: yep, he’s a rad dude! His artistic talents are musical as well, Check out the MySpace music page for his band Seaby and the Rules. Thanks again, Seabotron!

Alright, that’s it for this round folks! Thanks for stopping in and I’ll see ya next time!