I’ll take this one!

Chapter 145: New Year Nonsense...

• More Top 5’s of 2023!

• Some WTFPFH? Goodness for your eyes!

• New Books This Week!

Hello!

So last week’s kick off to the new year with my “Top 5 Hangouts” ended up with a lot of you asking for me to do some more serious Top 5 lists.

I got a request for my Top 5 Books I Worked on in 2023. I got a few requests for my Top 5 Comics of 2023. I even got a few requests for my Top 5 Movies of 2023. But shockingly, a truly insane number of requests for my Top 5 Chocolate Milks of 2023. I love all of you. Get help.

So, without further ado…

My Top 5 Chocolate Milks of 2023.

5. Battenkill Valley. Rich chocolate flavor that manages to be sweet without being cloying. A real freshness that allows all the different notes to express themselves without stepping on each other. When you think “chocolate milk” this is the kind of drink you should be thinking. Is it going to blow minds or change anyone’s worldview? Is it going to cure disease or usher in a new age of world peace? No. It’s milk with chocolate in it, you weirdo. But there is something to be said for just doing what you do very well. In 2023 (and 2024 I hope) proficiency is all too rare and sexy as hell. Make a good and simple thing, do it well, and take pride in that.

4. Hudson Valley Fresh. There is a smokiness in the cocoa that could almost be overdone, but ends up stopping just short. The milk is thick, bordering on cream, but still has a chugability that keeps it feeling light when it isn’t. It’s a hard balance to hit, and no one did it as well as Hudson Valley. Big year for valleys I guess. I’m more of a mountain guy myself, but I guess cows don’t love them, so the milk you’re getting from someone with mountain in the name of their might be a little weird. But I’d fuck with chocolate yak milk I guess. Yaks live in mountains, right? I don’t think I just made that up. If they don’t, they should.

3. Ronnybrook. An old standard. Ronnybrook does so many things I don’t like in a chocolate milk, but does them so well that you can’t help but be won over. The thickness, the overpowering richness, the blunt taste in the front and powerful aftertaste. But somehow it all works. This is the standard that all the “melted fudgesicle” style chocolate milks aspire to, and all fall short of. This is a sipping chocolate milk, almost a European drinking chocolate, best served as cold as you can get it. The layman might think that puts it into chocolate milkshake territory, but Ronnybrook is definitely not a milkshake and in firmly planting it’s flag in the milk category becomes a great showcase for the versatility of a good chocolate milk. It’s not an every day drink but when you want it it’s perfect. Also, I like Brooks more than Valleys. I guess in the geological sense the 2 are often related, but thinking of brooks makes me smile. I feel nothing inside when I think about valleys.

2. Trader Joe’s. This is a tough one to put on the list because Trader Joe’s doesn’t have their own dairies. They don’t make their own products for the most part, they just buy from other companies and repackage. So judging the quality of something like their milk is hard because it usually isn’t consistent. My guess is they were sourcing from multiple farms and would get a variety of different milks and buying their chocolate milk was something of a game of low stakes, dairy-based Russian Roulette. But all that seems to have changed this year. There is a consistency now, and it’s great. A dutch cocoa blend that is not overly sweet, incredibly creamy while still being thin enough to take big sips, and hints of vanilla to balance the palate. It lingers on the tongue after, continuing to evolve. I can’t say for sure, but if I had to guess they are using the wonderful but short lived Maple Hill Creamery Chocolate Milk. If so, good on them for snatching up one of the best (and dearly missed) in the game. I don’t have some “fun” quip about their name and it’s rankings in my favorite bits of nature. But I do think it is really weird that far rightwing types don’t call Biden “Traitor Joe.” It’s not particularly clever, and while I don’t love the dude I’m not sure what he has done that is treasonous, but I’m sure they’d have reasons. But really, it’s right there. It has brand name awareness, it’s catchy, it cuts to the heart of the thing, it feels overly “cute” while being shitty which is a big thing in the mean nickname game, and obviously it’s so much better than Let’s Go Brandon or whatever. That doesn’t offend anyone. Move on. Anyway, Trader Joe’s Chocolate Milk is really good.

1. Shamrock Farms. For all you Vegas odds makers out there, I’m sure this is a shocker. Let’s start with the bad. And hot damn is it bad. This fucking packaging. 

This looks like one of those protein shakes for people who rank “taste” as the very last thing they care about in the things they eat. This looks like food for people who list “swole” as a life goal. This looks like a drink that would have an exclusive distribution deal at stores where you can buy steroids. This looks like something you get a free case of when you sign up to a gym that has “no mercy” on their sign. This looks like a drink that would sponsor the NCAA but colleges would ban on campus. It’s fucking horrible. Green and brown are usually not a good color combo. That shit only works in forests (or valleys I guess) and even then just barely. The red band that just says “whole” like it’s a flavor. The very large chunk of chocolate that both reminds you how chocolate milk is very much NOT made and is also visually unappealing. It looks like a fucking boulder. Brown on brown now? I know you’re fucking with me but it’s working. This is a psy-op. If this bottle were smaller no one would bat an eye if it was sold in a little counter-top display next to the register at gas stations and bodegas. It wouldn’t be clear if it kept you awake, gave you a boner, or made you see sounds and taste ideas, but the box would say “Proven to work!” in big letters and truckers would fucking love it. Then we have the generic font that feels like a placeholder. This whole design feels like a it was thrown together by a depressed 20-year old marketing agency intern who promised his boss he’d do his job for him but instead stayed up all night playing Call Of Duty and only remembered he had to have this for a presentation while on the subway on his way to work. He got fired and had to move back in with his folks but somehow they used the design anyway. Pure dogshit. The large white “9g” indicating the amount of protein in the drink, inexplicably drawing the eye down like some sort of sociology experiment to see what would happen if we just tried to sell people food via nutritional information instead of fancy things like flavor, taste, or type of food. Making the “9g” a larger font than the word “chocolate” makes it clear what they are trying to push, and it’s not “you will enjoy this” or “this is for humans with taste buds.” If RC Cola bought the rights to Soylent Green this is how they’d package it. This feels like a drink you’d give to a really fancy horse. This feels like a graphic designer’s suicide note. I hate it.

I’m picking on Shamrock farms here, but this is a lesson to all chocolate milk companies- signaling you are trying to jump on some workout trend rather than some good taste non-trend is a fucking horrible idea. Always. Some people will want to drink your drink now because it replenishes nutrients or whatever? Cool. That’s a nice bonus. But I bet now, like at every other moment in human history, most people will want to eat a thing because they like the way they taste. Signaling to the former does nothing to instill confidence in the latter. So happy for everyone involved that some health-minded folks drink chocolate milk now. Enjoy those extra sales. Buy yourself a new cow. But your base audience is looking for a delicious chocolatey drink that most people over the age of 8 recognize is closer to a dessert than it is to an essential food group. You make stuff for fat kids. Stop pretending you don’t. You don’t see Hostess telling you that Twinkies are full of golden sponge nutrients and electrolyte cream. You want to make healthy shit? Go make fruit smoothies or… I don’t know what healthy people eat obviously, but you get my point. You aren’t tricking anyone. Let chocolate milk be chocolate milk you fucking cowards.

Back to Shamrock Farms. Overall the packaging just sucks shit and whoever made it should never touch a computer again. Bring back whoever designed their cute little logo right away to fix this fucking green on brown on brown, pictures of gravel, first draft-looking, may contain human growth hormone, eye-bleeding disaster.

Now that the bad is out of the way, let’s talk about what’s good. All of it. A bold yet subtle flavor. A sneaking sweetness that doesn’t overwhelm. Rich chocolate flavors that feel complex but never at the expense of being easy to understand. The consistency is an effortless balance of sipping and chugging. It’s a perfect little serving of chocolate milk in a fucking horrific little bottle. I can’t say enough good things about this drink. The sleeper hit of the year? No. The best chocolate milk of the year.

I was going to list my top 5 movies but I got too worked up about chocolate milk packaging and now we have to move on.

After a little delay because some of us got sick, some of us got exhausted, and then we decided to make the issue way too long, WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE? #17 drops next week. In an effort to actually try to promote my work on here and not just talk about milk and punk bands, have a fun preview of the issue. Tyler decided to channel some Frank Miller energy in the sound effect “TOOT TOOT” and that’s the funniest thing we’ve ever done. Enjoy.

In comic shops next week. Thanks for picking it up if you’ve been keeping up with us. Terrible jumping on point if you haven’t, but grab it anyway.

It’s Wednesday. That’s New Comic Day. Get to a store and grab some comics. Need suggestions? Then you’ve come to the right place.

ADVENTUREMAN: GHOST LIGHTS #1 by Matt Fraction, Terry Dodson, Rachel Dodson, & co. The next arc of the wonderful Adventureman series starts here. Written by Matt Fraction (writer of Hawkeye, creator of Chip Zdarsky, current Godzilla) and drawn by Terry Dodson (artist on X-Men, Wonder Woman, The Avengers, and so much more gorgeous stuff) get together you should be showing up without even asking what it is. Luckily for you, they’re making awesome comics with an old school heart. A fun pulp-adventure comic with modern sensibilities, whip-smart writing, and some of the prettiest art around, Adventureman is always a blast and this new one is off to a great start. And if you aren’t already, follow the wonderful newsletter of Matt and his wife Kelly Sue’s company

Milkfed Dispatches

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ACID CHIMP VS. BUSINESS DOG #1 by Mark Russell, Bryce Ingman, Peter Krause, and Steve Pugh. I could tell you about how this is a wild crossover battle between the excellent BILLIONAIRE ISLAND series and the also excellent MY BAD series. I could tell you how it’s a great jumping on point even if you didn’t read those. Or how it’s a fun time with great art and lots of clever and bizarre jokes. But really, if you weren’t sold on the title I don’t think I can do anything for you.

BARNSTORMERS by

Scott Snyder

, Tula Lotay, & co. A love story and a murder mystery that set in the world of 1920’s stunt pilots. It’s a pitch so wild that you know it must be good. And luckily for all of us, it is. Tula’s art remains a revelation. Every page feels like finding a new favorite piece in a museum. And Scott once again proves he can tackle any subject and any genre and make it his own. Not content to coast (ha!) on a wild premise, the book is an engrossing read full of wild twists and gorgeous art.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES / USAGI YOJIMBO by Stan Sakai. Nothing was better to my young brain than when the martial arts Turtles got to hang out with their badass feudal rabbit friend. Turns out, all these years later, it still rules. Stan Sakai is a master, a true legend of comics. Usagi Yojimbo will forever be known as one of the greatest comics ever made. The Turtles are the Turtles, no introduction needed. Any time all these masters get together you owe it to yourself to read it.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #1 by Jonathan Hickman, Marco Checchetto, & co. I usually don’t hype big 2 books on here but I’m making an exception because I like this Hickman kid and I want him to succeed. If you aren’t checking out his fun “What if Dune was weird” universe

3 Worlds / 3 Moons

you’re missing out on some of the weirdest and most fascinating stuff going on in comics. But back to the matter at hand. Ultimate Spider-Man is my favorite superhero comic of all time, and a strong contender for favorite comic of all time, so I get nervous when it comes to a relaunch. But Jonathan, Marco, and the team come out swinging (ha!) in what will be one of the biggest launches of the year. And it’s a good one. Jump on and get excited about middle-aged superheroes!

I guess that’s it. Go buy some comics now. Or soon.

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Stay safe. Take care of each other. Are you sorry you asked about the milk?

-Matthew Rosenberg

NYC 1/10/24