TOASTED!ZINE -- NEW NEW X-MEN WRITER?

toasted!zine – January 13th, 2003

Inside this issue:

• The New New X-Men Writer!
  
• The Old Old Toasted! Writer!
  
• And the free flowin' stylin's of Toasted News Boxers!
  
  
  'Ello, 'Ello, 'Ello
  
  Funny story. Happened to a friend of a friend of mine.
  
  See, this guy went and got himself a job at one of them fancy shmancy comic book news websites as a columnist, and overtime, he befriended a very outgoing male intern (the results of which were almost as disturbing as that thought sounds), and fell in love with a female one whilst he went about writing his weekly contribution to the world. Or so he tried.
  
  You see, as the days went be, he grew increasingly distracted by the many events around him. His friend moved into the office where said column was supposed to be produced, and his secret crush was receiving love letters from a secret admirer (who didn't happen to be him). And, to top things off, if he didn't get things to pick up on his column (ie MORE VIEWS), he would be royally fired.
  
  Naturally, the column suffered as the main writer tried to juggle more balls than he could handle, and one betrayal later, another one of the website's columnists was swooping down on the girl of his dreams while he was being led out of the building, having just been fired for not pulling his weight.
  
  You with me so far? I'll take that as a yes, even though you're probably clawing your eyes out so that you can't read any more of my jabber.
  
  Now. Just over a month later, I... err... my friend's friend got called back to the website's offices. Apparently, the intern he had befriended had scared away all of the potential columnist replacements that had come along, and because the site had signed up all of their columns to one year contracts (convieniently enough), he got his old job back.
  
  However, there were a few conditions attached to this bit of rehiring and naturally, not all of those conditions (make that NONE) made my friend's friend very happy, but... a job is a job, right? Right.
  
  So, in conclusion, I just thought I'd let you know about my friend's friend just for the *heck* of it. It has nothing to do with this column what so ever. *cough cough*
  
  Now that that's out of the way... welcome back to toasted! It sure has been a while since the last edition, but hey. Things happen. However, I'm going to assure that from now on, nothing is going to happen at all. *ahem*. Hope that makes you all feel better.
  
  Thanks for showing up.
  
  -brandon
  
  Toasted News Boxers!
  "Broadcasting across the world from Studio 8¼ in Nanuktuk Centre, it Toasted News Boxers!, with brandon schatz and Amy Johnson.
  
  brandon: Hello and welcome to Toasted News Boxers. Here are this week's top stories.
  
  Amy: Chuck Austen is set to write a follow up arc to Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men, which will serve as a cross over between both NXM and Austen's own Uncanny before the new X-Men regime takes over in May. Also, after Chuck's initial five issue story arc on Avengers comes to a close, he will follow it up with a three issue arc called "Once An Invader" and an inter-company crossover titled "Atlantean Nation".
  
  In related news, Joe Quesada has finally assembled an all star investigation team, that is currently sweeping the globe in a desperate search for the pictures [b]Austen has of him, and a troupe of dancing exotic monkeys.
  
  brandon: But who will be the "permanent" replacement on New? The internet's most prolific rumor columns claim that Joe Quesada has gotten a hold of Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly) to write New. However the details of the deal are very sketchy, as several different versions of the story. Each does have Whedon eventually teaming with John Cassidy (Planetary), a fact that has NOT been denied by John, who has reported to have signed up for a Marvel project for "a big bag of money". However, the question is, WHEN will the teaming take place. Some say that the Whedon/Cassidy connection won't be a go for another YEAR. If this is the case, any number of writers have been rumored to take the mantle for six issue story arcs, including Neil "Nope It's Not Me... Or Is It?" Gaimen, Peter Milligan, and Brian Singer, who reportedly told a class he was lecturing that he had just been "writing some X-Men comics".
  
  Others say that Whedon and Cassidy are all lined up for the big May Reload of what seems to be all the current X-Men titles, and that Whedon will be the plotter, while someone else will be the scripter.
  
  And I say, that I'm the new writer.
  
  But in the end, you can't really trust someone's word until it's proven. (Damn, that sounds like a public service announcement).
  
  Amy: Marvel Editor Axel Alonso says the Marvel Knights imprint will be expanding it's ongoing title number from three, to seven in April, with the addition of a new Spider-Man title, and three other titles that are currently ongoing regular Marvel titles. One of the three regular titles making the jump is Hulk, and the two others are described by Alonso as being mystery titles. However, both of the "mystery" titles, WILL be starting new arcs in January.
  
  One look at the Marvel March solicits will get you these candidates: Iron Man, Hawkeye, Spider-Girl, Fantastic Four, Wolverine, Uncanny X-Men, New X-Men, X-Statix, Mystique, New Mutants, and Weapon X.
  
  Common sense should cut that list down to about two or three titles. Whadda' you get?
  
  brandon: *coughs* post below... *cough*
  
  Anyway, that's the way we saw this week. From all of us here at Toasted News Boxers...
  
  Amy: Wait!
  
  brandon: *sigh* What is it Amy?
  
  Amy: We don't have anything other than Marvel news.
  
  brandon: So?
  
  Amy: Soooo, that doesn't make this news thing sound very legitimate.
  
  brandon: Amy. We're cracking jokes at news bits. That's not very legitimate.
  
  Amy: But I thought the whole point of this was to sound legitimate.
  
  brandon: Look, next week, we won't do any Marvel news, are you happy now?
  
  Amy: No.
  
  brandon: *sigh* Fine. FINE.
  
  In other news, DC, CrossGen, Dreamwave, Image and a whole bunch of other comic book companies are putting out comics this week. Shazam for them.
  
  Now, for all of us here at Toasted News Boxers, this is brandon schatz saying good-bye, and good day.
  
  END!
  
  next week!
  Yes, there is only one thing inside of Toasted! this week. To avoid big delays in column posting, we're slowly weening ourselves on bigger portions. With that in mind, next week make sure to come here for another edition of Toasted News Boxers, find out all the dirty details behind my re-hiring and discover my reasons for hating a man by the name of Bob Kane.
  
  Until then, stay lightly toasted.
  
  toasted!zine is a psudo online magazine "slash" column, and is produced four times a month. Any comments you disagreed or agreed with in the above column were not the opinions of anyone else at comiXtreme, other than brandon schatz', as everyone is pretty sure that Amy Johnson is just someone brandon made up after being bitterly alone for far too long.