Drinking Through Kitchen Renovation + A Double Shot of Trimark News at Comic and Movie Bitrot for 19 August 2026!

Welcome back to another edition of Comic and Movie Bitrot, where we discuss drinking, kitchen renovations, and Trimark. As a reminder, you can find much of this on Blogger. You can follow Zachary on Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Threads, and his website. As a reminder, you can still order copies of my first novel, The Grange, here. Also, my Augmented Reality/Tabletop Role-Playing Game app, QuestXR, is now launching its BackerKit campaign, and you can sign up here. This week, The Wife and I went for a whisky tasting. It was definitely needed given insurance and contractors. Plus, it’s about three million degrees outside, here on Sweat Earth. At least our AC still works. Yes, I know, I probably jinxed us, but I have nothing left to give

In the “real world,” things continue to wobble about. Shitler is having problems with candidates he’s endorsing not winning primaries. And what is a Natalie Harp? Trump continues to gush over North Korea. I think it’s a good thing Hannibal Lecter wasn’t an actual person, because Trump would have named him the head of the FDA by now. At least ABC finally showed some spine (along with the BBC) in dealing with Trump lawsuits. Let’s just get to comics. This week, we’ve got five titles reviewed. As always, they’re scored on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man - Issue 1

Marvel Comics

Review by Zachary Hunchar

I’ll be upfront that I’ve enjoyed the Miles Morales animated films. For the comics, they’ve been a bit hit or miss for me. I think it is more a matter of talent on the individual projects. Of late, I’ve been underwhelmed. Some of this is because of the chaos of the multiverse, vampires, and stuff. Some of it is the odd collection of powers he has. Also, the stuff with his father is a bit much. I do like him as a character and person…I think the superhero stuff is the weak part. This new book gets around much of this by having him interact with kids his age, who aren’t supes. For the most part, I enjoyed things in this book. We get fun-ish stuff with Ganke. There’s a new love interest. And he pushes the Spider-verse away. The weakest part is the villain, though I like the science problem he creates. The artwork is excellent. There’s potential with this book. I hope it gets there.

Score: 7 out of 10

Gastronomique - Issue 1

BOOM! Studios

Review by Zachary Hunchar

This is a new comic by writer Marguerite Bennett (Witchblade, Hello Darkness, Mommy Blog, etc.) This comic is…messed up. It takes place during the French Revolution and involves people who are doing things for reasons. I know that is vague, but the story is very subtextual and not everything is clear. Some of that is mystery, and some of that is the very stylized artwork. Artist Helena Masellis has created a style that mixes Manga with some aspects of Metal Hurlant. It’s very interesting, but I think it falls a bit short of enhancing the story. Particularly, the character Tarrare is baffling. There’s a clear supernatural element to the tale that is sort of glossed over. My guess is that this all becomes clearer once all the issues are out. Right now, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher.

Score: 5.5 out of 10

Supergirl - Issue 16

DC Entertainment

Review by Zachary Hunchar

Part one of Kingdom of Zod. This issue establishes the thrust of the event: synthetic kryptonite has bombarded Earth, particularly one island, and the Superteam (minus Superman) is going in to try to stabilize things. The main point is that Supergirl seems to be the person in charge, and she’s oddly unsure of herself. I know this ongoing series has leaned into the awkward young woman, but she seems out of character here. And I find the never-ending bickering between Connor and Prime, but I’m sure it will fall by the wayside. This event book isn’t that interesting to me. Zod is a real threat when there is one Kryptonian, but there’s like six now. Maybe it does something interesting at the end. The art is fine.

Score: 6.5 out of 10

Action Comics - Issue 1101

DC Entertainment

Review by Zachary Hunchar

Part two of Kingdom of Zod. Clark is back, and he’s there with the team that went to save Superboy…and Superboy is with them. That’s not going to imperil the timeline or anything. And then there was punching and biting with Zod. I’m not convinced things will be that different at the end. Also, Zod’s motivations were weird. It sounds like the planet he conquered was then conquered by the Khunds. I had no idea they could defeat a bunch of Kryptonians, but whatever. There’s a fair amount of conflict, which is fun. I just don’t get why they brought Clark with them. Nothing good will come from this. The art was decent.

Score: 7 out of 10

The Hulk - Issue 10

Marvel Comics

Review by Zachary Hunchar

The issue reminded me a lot of Sandman, but for probably the wrong reasons. Well, that’s confusing. The true wrong reason was that if it felt like something Neil Gaiman wrote, and he didn’t. And it doesn’t. But it feels a lot like issue 4 of Sandman, which was adapted into an episode of a Netflix show. It’s where Morpheus goes into Hell to recover his helmet, which a demon had. He had to play a game, which was fascinating and kind of made sense. Bruce Banner doing something similar makes zero sense. This book is bonkers, and that makes it kind of fun. But if you picked this up for the first time, you’d probably not have a clue as to what is happening. It’s a strange book. This issue’s artwork is underwhelming.

Score: 7 out of 10

There’s a double-shot of Hollywood news I’m connected to.

The sad news was the passing of visual effects artist Screaming Mad George. He passed earlier in the year, but it was only announced this week. From AV Club:

Born Joji Tani in Osaka, Japan, in 1956, Screaming Mad George (a moniker styled after Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and MAD Magazine) moved to New York City at 18 to study at the School of Visual Arts and form the punk band The Mad, serving as its lead vocalist. He went on to direct music videos featuring stupefyingly gnarly effects that would become his signature, eventually attracting the attention of practical effects guru Rick Baker and leading to work on productions such as Predator, Poltergeist II, John Carpenter’s Big Trouble In Little China—where he helped realize the pulsating, bug-nuts Flying Eye Guardian—and A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, where he turned Brooke Theiss into a cockroach.

While George is known as a horror artist, he preferred the term “surrealist,” a distinction that bonded him to director Brian Yuzna, with whom he collaborated as the director’s creature designer and makeup artist on Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation and Bride Of Re-Animator (both in 1990), Faust: Love Of The Damned (in 2000, working from comic co-creator Tim Vigil’s design), Beyond Re-Animator (in 2003, his last credited movie work), and, perhaps most infamously, 1989’s Society, which featured an impressively enormous mass of shifting, furious flesh in the film’s most notorious sequence, known as “The Shunting.” (Hang on, Billy: that link is especially NSFW.)

Though I never worked directly with him, he worked on several films I released, including Return of the Living Dead 3, The Stoned Age, and The Dentist 2. Ahh…Trimark. Those were the days.

Also from that era is word of a Leprechaun reboot! Yet again, the studio is looking to do something with its IP. From Scream Horror Mag:

Some time ago, Lionsgate were reportedly moving forward with a reboot of the storied Leprechaun franchise.

At the time, we reported that actor Filipe Vargas was attached to direct the reboot, but in 2025, the project was dropped.

Now, it has been confirmed that Lionsgate are once again pressing forward with a new Leprechaun instalment, with a new creative team involved.

Although very little is known about the project, reliable sources state that prolific Saw writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan will pen this script.

Furthermore, Twisted Pictures are attached to produce the newest Leprechaun instalment, headed by father-son producing team Oren and Miles Koules.

In a press release confirming the Leprechaun reboot, Oren Koules said:
“After producing all the Saw films, and twenty-three wonderful years at Lionsgate, I’m thrilled to be working again with the Lionsgate team, Patrick and Marcus, and my son, Miles, on a terrifying new way into the rich world of Leprechaun.”

This will be the ninth entry for the Leprechaun series, which has previously visited the Middle Ages, Las Vegas, outer space, and memorably “tha Hood.”

The franchise has spawned two theatrical releases, five direct-to-video movies, and one SyFy original television production.

The first six films starred Warwick Davis, giving one of the defining performances of his career. As the quality and production budgets declined, Davis stepped back. However, recently the actor has floated the idea of returning to the role.

With a major studio aboard, it seems Leprechaun is about to go mainstream once again. Can they lure Davis back to guard his beloved gold once more?

We’ll keep an eye on this reboot and bring you any further updates.

You might recall a prior post where I mentioned the passing of the character’s creator, Mark Jones. And the post that delved into Jones’ anger with me over the comic book I wrote, though I didn’t learn about it until the end of his life.

This doesn’t seem all that difficult to me. They keep trying to reboot Blair Witch Project and Saw. Why not combine the properties? Like, Jigsaw traps the Leprechaun and chaos ensues. Or, the Leprechaun gets caught up in the Blair Witch’s magic, and they fight. It can’t be worse than any of their recent film releases.