ICWXP Comics Part 2: In Ludovico's Clutches

When last we left Rick Wolf, TopsyBot and Johnny Cylon in their attempts to strike back against Ludovico in the "lost time" between episodes 1.04 and 2.01, they were in the clutches of the evil corporation that even Wolfram and Hart is too afraid to work for (ask a Whedon fanatic).

Issue two of the ICWXP comic book series, called "The Belly Button of the Beast Is An Outie"  looks at Rick and Cylon basically trapped inside Ludovico HQ. Rick's in the chair where he's forced to see bad movies. Kincaid, hidden in shadows, taunts Rick but also promises him that he'll be with Cylon and TopsyBot again. However, he also adds to the torture thanks to some chopsticks. Meanwhile, Cylon is being examined by two scientists, and they're pretty impressed with how the bot is almost human.

Then, the story takes a strange turn: Rick's in a forest, making a remark that's a callback to the "Talking Car" short, then finds his pals. They also discover they are in a very unlikely place. This may be a hint that Rick's still stuck in a virtual reality.

It looks like Cylon and Rick will be at the mercy of Ludovico for some time, while TopsyBoy tries to fend for itself...and eventually come to the rescue.

Digital copies of both issues are available at www.icwxp.com, along with information about how to preorder the latest DVD, which is coming later this spring. Here's a preview of the next DVD, where Johnny Cylon conducts a very unusual interview that reveals a bit too much. It shows how the boys are keeping the humor of "host segments" from the MST3K days alive.

My Space Classics: First Review of ICWXP

My first review of something I review all the time: 

From February 2008:

Thanks to MySpace, a new force battling the evil of bad movies has emerged...Incognito Cinema Warriors XP!!
Out from the apocalyptic bowels of a Kansas City suburb, Commander Rikk Wolf battles against zombies and Hellspawn for CORPS...because for some reason they have no faith towards a 27 year old Slayer named Buffy. Anywho, he's the last survivor of his battalion, and now finds himself an an abandoned movie house called the Cine-Sorrow Theater. He meets two robots, Topsybot 5000 and Johnny Cylon, then discovers that the "owner," Dr. Harrison Blackwood, will force them to watch bad movies.
Yes, this sounds familiar. In fact, the doc nearly admits it's a knock-off of the original movie-mocking diety known as MST3000. But since that's "split" into Cinematic Titanic and Film Crew/Rifftrax, someone has to pick up the torch.
So, ICW has been chosen to revive the tradition, trapped in a theater "where the '50's went to die", and mock away at crimes against cinema.

This isn't too unusual. Some MST fans have made their own versions of the show, either for their own amusement or YouTube fodder. But the ICW guys figure they can make a few bucks doing this job, and it looks like they will. The first movie is Bride of the Gorilla, featuring a pre-Perry Mason Raymond Burr as Barney, the foreman of a plantation. He's in love with Deena, the wife of his boss, and hopes to take her as his own. He knocks off Mr. Plantation Owner, but the only witness is an old lady with nasty witchcraft of her own. He turns Barney into a were-Gorilla, and not because he killed. He was also stringing along Marina, a native woman who also hoped to be in Barney's greasy arms. The movie, for lack of a better term, also features Lon Chaney Jr., who was once an Indestructible Man.

So, how to the ICW guys stand up as extreme riffers? Pretty good, actually. They have a few too many jokes about bodily fluids, but they get some good lines in here, such as...
"Bow before Siodmak!" (the guy who wrote and directed this movie)
"That snake swallow a violinist?"
When Marina emerges from the jungle, hoping to talk to Barney, "Shadow Ninja Attack!!"
Marina finds comfort in the spooky old lady, "I love you Grandma Rotten Pumpkin Head." (She's also compared to Mel Brooks in drag).
As the "curse" starts to take hold, "When is this curse going to kick in? I want to get this movie over with."
Then Barney wanders in the jungle, but we don't see him as a gorilla.."Invisible Were-Gorilla. Throwing invisible poop at a theater near you."
Just as Barney gets back from a night of being an animal, "She'll never know that I snuck out to become a gorilla," and my favorite riff about the jungle, "It's got fun and games, and you've got no money, and it's got your disease." Burr also says "The jungle's my house. It belongs to me", which should have been followed by something like "No, wait. The Bank of Tarzan just foreclosed on your sub-prime loan."
Finally, this riff that describes how the crew feels.."If the plot had been half as thick as this jungle, this movie might actually have been good enough to suck."

OK, the Riffs are strong with these guys. There are some similarities, such as the red "zombie alert" that's a bit too much like "Movie Sign", and the yellow light when Dr. Blackwood wants to talk to them from his undisclosed location. He sees Wolf, Topsybot and Cylon as his little ant farm. He'll inflict bad movies on them until he's bored, and then unleash the zombies on them...unless the zombies get to the doc first. There's an idea the show can consider.

Otherwise, the show is structured like a traditional night at the movies our grandparents may have had: a trailer first, then one of those propaganda films trying to convince you to get popcorn or candy, then the main feature. The ICW guys can re-create that, plus add a lame cartoon or newsreel. That will set them apart from the MST style.

Of course, so will the future episodes...blood-drenched horror flicks from Europe not even the MST crew would touch. Something about FCC standards, but we can see what they'll do to them. The ICW site also has small bios of the guys behind this great idea in who-needs-you-media-conglomerates entertainment. Lets hope we'll see more of this series soon!

My Space Classics: Reviewing Incognito Cinema Warriors' 2nd DVD

Somewhere in the internet, I had a blog in MySpace. It's still barely active, thanks to my tweets and Facebook posts. It's about time I featured the best of that old blog, including some pre-Whedonopolis stuff. Enjoy!

From August 28, 2008:

When a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 decided to make his own version of the show, and promote it on the internet, he wasn't sure if anyone would buy it. After all, there have been some attempts to recreate the magic that is MST3K, but could someone actually succeed?
Well, Rikk Wolf, zombie hunter, has his answer...

These guys are good--fast-paced, funny riffing throughout. Now, fellahs, would you please stop making my job look easy!--Mike Nelson

This is not to say that Incognito Cinema Warriors has become the official heir apparent to the MST3K tradition. After all, Mike is still going strong with Rifftrax, while Joel Hodgson and his minions from MST3K have their own growing franchise in Cinematic Titanic. All that Rikk has proved is that he's the only "civilian" who is worthy.

AMEN!!!!!

So, with that in mind, let's celebrate the return of ICW (and about $@*^%! time) with Rikk's riffs on the racy and scary Italian horror film, Lady Frankenstein. For those who missed the first DVD, the idea is that Rikk is a zombie hunting soldier who's trapped in an abandoned movie house while swarms of zombies surround the place. Rikk is joined by TopsyBot 5000, which serves popcorn, and Johnny Cylon, who will deny to the death that Twiki from Buck Rogers is his grandfather. The two bots work at the theater for Dr. Harrison Blackwood, who presents movies so bad he takes precuations to keep customers from leaving. In this case, he forces Rikk and the bots to see his bad movies, or they'll be zombie chow.

Since the first DVD, Bride of the Gorilla, Rikk and his friends have cleaned up the joint, although they think they're mascots from cleaner commericals. Then, a dumpy looking non-zombie named Darrell enters the theater, looking for a place to crash. Rikk agrees, because he has his own problems, namely the next movie.
Just like before, he gets a trailer of "coming attractions", usually the next movie to be riffed. However, they've changed the seating arrangement to avoid from being too-MST-like. Rikk, TopsyBot and Cylon now sit in a balcony.

As Lady Frankenstein starts, one of the bots asks, "are we going to see a guy with bolts in his neck make us an offer we can't refuse?" Not really, but they do see once-prominent actor Joseph Cotton as Baron Frankenstein, a grave-robbing mad scientist who's trying to bring the dead back to life. His daughter, Tania, has just come back from medical school ("C'mere, you little mother's lie'). Since she's a surgeon, she wants to help in the experiments, although he's not too sure. ("Crimes against nature is boys' stuff') The Baron's assistant, Dr. Charles Marshall, doesn't mind.
After the town hangs a guy who looks like Patrick Swayze, the Baron works on using his parts to bring another man back to life. Against all odds, and despite a slightly damaged brain, he succeeds. The result looks creepier than tha cheesiest alien ("Jesus, look at the huge Martian coconut"). Not only that, the creature squeezes the Baron to death, much to the dismay of Tania.
Back in the theater, Darrell is so bad as a roommate, Rikk would prefer the Creature. Let's not talk about hygiene habits.

OK, so what about the dead mad scientist? Tania vows to carry on her father's work, with sexy results. The Creature, meanwhile, is out and about ("My creator has a first name, it's F-R-A-N-K....E-N..."), and sees two people having sex, one more naked than the other. The movie plays spoilsport, and blocks out the nudity in this and other scenes. It's quite a contrast to the start of "City Limits" on MST3K, where Joel used an umbrella to block out the brief nudity in the credits. Anyway, the creature grabs the nude woman, shakes her to death, and dumps her in the river. ("Smile, you're on Candid Camera, snuff film edition"). The undead prude does the same to one of the Baron's grave-robbing friends. This has attracted the attention of Captain Harris, played by Mickey Hargitay, the former Mr. Jayne Mansfield. He usually acts smug, suspecting people of doing blasphemous things.
Well, this movie certainly shows them, but not completely. Later in the film, Tania has married Charles, but wants to put his brain into a sexier body...Thomas, a simple-minded servant. To do that, we see something even worse than Ben Stiller was accused of doing when he made Tropic Thunder: she seduces Thomas while Charles watches, and Charles smothers Thomas with a pillow. This inspires an incredible riff from Rikk that I'd rather not repeat. You just have to hear it for yourself. They do make snide remarks about the cinematography ("Did someone release mustard gas?"), and speculate about Thomas' last words ("It was still worth it").

So, while Tania is Making Mr. Right (in more ways than one), the creature is still killing people if they're not having sex, while the townsfolk carry torches, looking to burn someone they don't like. We do get the ending where the mad scientist is punished for tampering in Hugh Hefner's, I mean God's, domain, but again it's with sexy results.

Even Rikk and his pals would agree that Lady Frankenstein is a movie with so much sex and violence (especially sex), MST wouldn't touch it, but ICWXP would. They're hard-core heavy metal, ECW in its original form, the grindhouse version of MST3000, and I salute them for that. This DVD is recommended for MST fans 17 and older.

As for the future, we'll get another Eurotrashy horror movie with Hargitay, and eventually The Hideous Sun Demon. We're also supposed to get a new character on the show. Let's just hope that episode three comes a lot sooner than episode two.

ICWXP: It May Not Be So Bad, But The Movies Still Are

After struggles over funding and just getting new equipment to keep the band going, the latest edition of Incognito Cinema Warriors XP was released a couple of days ago. In "The Gear Is Family", we learn a lot about the past, are surprised that there's actually some normal life during the Zombiepocalypse, witness the next stage of advanced interrogation, and see how a chocolate city creates candy, happiness and stuff.

Before we get to the details, I got a free CORPS patch because I pre-ordered the DVD way in advance. A year or so before, I had another CORPS patch that looked a little different.

I'd say that's a reminder of how long these guys have been hard a work keeping the MST3K tradition alive. After all, it's guys like these that have made severe movie criticism one of America's fastest-growing industries..and defense mechanisms. Just think of what Mike Nelson and his Rifftrax minions are gonna to do Breaking Dawn 2 (especially after seeing--when Kristen Stewart is on late night TV--a recent clip of Vampire Bella trying to remember how to act human with the help of the other vamps!).
Next April...ICWXP is five years old, just a little younger than Cinematic Titanic.

This new chapter starts with Dr. Blackwood, aka Baron Sexenstein, talking to his new invention: the Spybot that saved Rick from the Zombie Spock in the last episode. Oh, and Rikk Wolf is Blackwood in this episode. In the audio commentary, he talked about how expensive it was to look like that, especially the wig. Anyway, we see that the doc had his own list of investion exchanges from that other show, such as an edible power tie, a mobile phone made from a pineapple, and a Santa Claus Dreidel (which really exists!) He winds up selling his Spybot to Ludivico, which doesn't end well. We also get clips from the past of the show, including the first movie. When the doc is taken away by Ludivico, they don't find the Spybot. It has to go to sleep for five years, then wakes up to a new world. It's knocked out after saving Rick, but then wakes up to see Flux repairing it. He, too, was made by Blackwood. That's why Flux tells "sis", they're running away from home. Don't worry, they don't.

From seeing what happened "40 minutes earlier", you don't blame him. Flux is in drunken dispair over what Michael Bay did to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle reboot (but that was delayed before this episode was made). TopsyBot and Johnny Cylon are annoying Ludivico minion Spencer Birkin with readings of two Twilight books at the same time (the fiends!). He spends the whole episode tied up, but he's still rather funny. He also reveals part of Kansas City is zombie-free, thanks to Ludivico.

Then it's mov...oh, lousy shorts sign. Rick, TopsyBot and Cylon are mugged by creepy snack bar ads that used to be part of every drive-in, plus a strange music interlude ("Serenade for Ken Burns") that made the gang suspect the KGB was deprogramming them.
Cylon is so glad afterwards that he thanks Robot Jesus. Then we get 20 minutes of how Hershey's the "Great American Chocolate Factory" ("Is this the Tim Burton version or the good one?"). We get riffs on Kirstie Alley, Chicago (the band), Mennonites, water parks in general, Toyota and Glee, and get the immortal words "Our mom says our dad is a real conch machine".

Back at the snack bar, Rick manages to surf the web, but doesn't want to go to YouTube, which he calls the bathroom wall of the net. The bots disagree, because they uploaded a video that has a didgeridoo and limericks, while Spencer has one on lab safety. However, they don't get as much hits as some guy lighting his farts...or a remix!

So, we have what seems to be a family at Cine-a-Sorrow: Rick the Dad, Flux, Fluxette the SpyBot, TopsyBot and Cylon as the wise-cracking kids, and Birkin as the wacky neighbor, er, hostage. This gives Cylon an idea.

If you get this DVD, see the main feature first, then again with audio commentary from Rikk and Nick Evans (TopsyBot) which is really enlightening. We find out that some MST fans weren't too happy about ICWXP at first, and what Rikk really thinks about YouTube. They even said the next episode, "YouTube Is For Haters" was supposed to be this episode. We also find out there's a chance this show may wind up on regular TV, although it may not look the same. They even discuss CGI and Avatar, too.

We also find out the gang promoted their show at the Zombie Walk For Hunger in Kansas City, and an anime convention in Overland Park, near Kansas City. They include riffs, of course. If you're a fan of Pauley Perrette, you've been warned.

The DVD also includes a bonus short about etiquette from Josh Way's Fun With Shorts, and a link to a future webisode where they give a "fair" review of the latest Resident Evil movie. The preview, though, may tip off their opinion about the movie. It's not ready yet, but it's coming soon.

You can get the latest ICWXP DVD, and lots of other stuff, by clicking here. You really should. This is fine humor that defied the odds to exist at all. Just ask Kickstarter.   

ICWXP: Rick Wolf is Legend

Vincent Price, Chuck Heston, Will Smith...kiss my last omega legend on Earth ass! Where's your Big Bad Apocalypse now?...Commander Rick Wolf

It's been a good week for fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000: the next DVD set with the Fugitive Alien movies and TV's Frank's farewell is coming this summer, Rifftrax finally released its live DVD of Jack the Giant Killer, and now Incognito Cinema Warriors XP has its first new DVD since November.

It establishes Flux Namtani as the new bot in town, while Rick Wolf decides that battling zombies to the death is preferable to seeing cigarettes square dance..or another talky horror flick. The series is now sort of traditional MST3K on steroids. That is, we see the gang deal with their post-apocalyptic world, while also enduring lame short subjects. Hopefully, they'll go back to even lamer feature films. The production values of the host segments is getting better thanks to fans chipping in through Kickstarter.

Before they get to the short, Topsybot 5000 and Johnny Cylon slowly get Flux unstuck in the 1980's, and update him about pop culture over the past 50 years (does this mean the show is set in the 2030's?). He is horrified to learn that since the '80s, vampires sparkle in the movies and zombies date. They also find out the Count from Sesame Street has gone metal, and uses the song "Bodies" to help kids learn to count ("Let the numbers hit the floor").

So how does Rick do in the outside world? Actually, it's disappointing: he only finds a Zombie Spock. However, it has an epic battle with one of the flying Ludivico spy cams that resembles, as one YouTube fan put it, Joe Cocker trying to bowl. I thought it looked more like CC Sabathia trying to pitch a possessed baseball.

Zombies or not, there are still short subjects to be riffed. So, the gang heads back to the Cine-a-Sorrow Theater for their latest torture, Soapy the Germ Fighter. It's a disturbing little movie about a boy who claims that having to be clean will make him a sissy instead of the macho cowboy he thinks he is. Through a dream, or a heroin nightmare according to Topsybot, he's taught the error of his ways by Soapy, a disturbing cake of soap with legs but no pants. It shows him several people who like to be clean, like a cowboy who tries to wash off "all that Indian blood". Strangely, it's the first movie to show a bucking bronco while the Nutcracker Suite is heard. To prove how much of an MST3K fan I am, I recognized a couple of the kids in the film as the same ones from a Rifftrax short about good eating habits.

Before that, the gang has to sit through some of those old ads that convince you to get some popcorn or corn dogs (made from cats) before the movie starts. This is what your grandparents had to suffer through before those "First Look" theater commercials were invented. Not only that, they see the famous "VD is for everybody" PSA, which makes Cylon shout "Natalie Portman, no!". That's followed by pop-up ads that not only appear out of nowhere but start arguing. I'm not kidding. It's, as Rick puts it, "a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich for the ages".

Then there's two major confrontations. One of them involves Ludivico lackeys expecting to cart the body of Rick away after he's supposedly dead after seeing a certain movie made by a Texas fertilizer salesman (yes, that one). Rick and the bots actually handle this problem very well. The other one battle involves...well....we'll just say there's a death scene you'll never forget.

The DVD has great special features. There's an audio commentary from Rikk Wolf and Nick Evans, who discuss everything from moving their offices to Kansas City to figuring out which software is better to make their weird puppet show. Another edition of "Ask a Cinema Warrior" answers questions about The Walking Dead, the chances of being on a TV network, and which movie they'd like to riff on if given the chance. There's also a blooper reel with behind-the scenes stuff, along with an unplugged version of the ICWXP theme, and a special Fun With Shorts feature from writer Josh Way. It's about Nick, the goofy teen from "What To Do On a Date" (the short from MST's Swamp Diamonds episode), and how he learns the "Benefits of Looking Ahead." Let's just say it saves him from eating an apple while living in in a burned-out building.

The new DVD is available at ICWXP.com. There's also other stuff like DVD's, the non-motion picture in comic book form, and stickers.

Note: Nelson's Liquor Mart, which was one of the ads shown on the show, was located in Tomahawk, Wisconsin. We're not sure if it's still open for business.

ICWXP The Comic Book...Where MST3K Has Not Gone Before

Sure, it seems like nearly TV show has a comic book, or tried to make one.
Buffy, Angel, Fringe, True Blood, CSI, even F-Troop (but that was back in the 1960s).

So why not have the Incognito Cinema Warriors do the comic book thing? It would boldly go where Mystery Science Theater 3000 never did, and what I wish Cinematic Titanic would do to explain their premise before they went only to live shows.
Anyway, ICWXP, the Non-Motion Picture explains what happened between the end of season one, where the Ludovico Corporation put Dr. Blackwood to pasture (or in it), to season two, where Rick Wolf had to be freed from the Ultimate Cinema Torture machine.

I received the digital version, but it's just as enjoyable as the portable paper version...especially since reading it on tablets or iPads is a more modern version.

Besides, this introduction by Wolf is reason enough to get the comic book:

"I am Commander Rick Wolf of CORPS, and once, a very long time ago...I WAS A HIGHLANDER!
Okay, not really....but damn I can rock a kilt."

Actually, it's Rick battling zombies outside the Cine-a-Sorrow Theater somewhere near Kansas City with his riffing robots TopsyBot 5000 and Johnny Cylon. While they do so, they get some nice riffs down on everything including movies in general, Steve Jobs, Butch and Sundance, and Resident Evil. They also ask the age-old question, "What would Danny Trejo do?"

The art, done by Wolf, is quite good. It's almost like seeing Rick, TopsyBot and Cylon live and usually covered in zombie blood. He also co-wrote the story with Bethanie Woods.

So, what could spoil the glorious moment for our heroes? None other than Kincaid, who sadly won't be part of season two. Hopefully the comic book will explain why, but it looks like he's decided to help our heroes so he can kill them twice. He's clearly the son Pearl Forrester cloned from herself just after Mystery Science Theater 3000 closed up shop.

It looks like in issue two Cylon is Rick's only hope, while TopsyBot is out of commission. Yet, if you got the first season two DVD, which featured a boring Victory Gardens short, you know the bots do survive and save Rick from the "luxury bedpan recliner".
But how? We'll find out in issue two, which may be made if enough people buy issue one. After all, the comics biz ain't too much different from TV. One poorly-selling title and you're gone, Jack!

Visit ICWXP.com to get your issue, plus their DVDs. They also have a new Kickstarter campaign to raise cash for new equipment. They're offering great premiums, including autographed posters and rare copies of the first DVD, Bride of the Gorilla, which looks a lot like the old MST.
So, check out Incognito Cinema Warriors XP, the Non-Motion Picture. It's Mike Nelson-approved. Really. It says so in the Lady Frankenstein DVD cover.