Some Thoughts on Comics Sales:
I've already mentioned how the July sales affected by Metti-Publisher ranking (I've since changed up my creator line-up quite a bit, from my ideal that I started with to something with a bit more of a realistic eye towards the market. I felt dirty doing it, even in make-believe, because it meant that I could say I understood how the market pressures lead to same 'ol, same 'ol marketing and editorial decisions), but The Pulse has now posted their analysis of Marvel and DC sales and I had some thoughts on sales as a result. Some of these are more or less responsive to comments or questions raised by the articles, and I recommend reading them at any rate.
1. The bump on sales from House of M, especially Hulk, has me wondering... what if Marvel were to just ditch continuity entirely, and have each, say, 4-6 months as an alternate reality that spins out of one or two writers' visions and the other writers would be encouraged to play in that playground? I mean, yes, mostly it would be an awful mess (kind of like House of M *rimshot*), but I wonder what the sales would look like? How long before the novelty of constant events won the war with fanboys missing their continuity?
2. "Ultimate Starts" month didn't do much for Ultimate sales. However, at least anecdotally, in my store, the Ultimate annuals have blown out the doors. I wonder if, rather than jumping-on points to new stories, the self-contained nature of those books might have encouraged people to jump back onboard books they had left behind. I haven't read any of the annuals, but I did give a skim-read to Ultimate Spider-Man Annual and found it to be the best issue of the book that I've read in quite some time. I'm not ready to jump back on the book, because the intriguing start to the MJ/Peter romance has now bogged down in typical "break up/make up" crap that might be realistic for a high school romance but which is kinda boring to read about, but it's a good start to a new relationship that could only take place in the Ultimate universe. Of course, I haven't read Ultimate Spider-Man since before the "Hobgoblin" arc, so I'm judging against word-of-mouth from customers and friends who read to keep up more than actual experience.
3. Runaways selling just inside the Top 75 I can deal with, although not happily. But selling less than the purposeless spin-off title Marvel Knights 4? OK, maybe it's time for Wolverine or Spider-Man to guest star... just to get the bump back to the 40K level that the book earned with the relaunch. It deserves higher than that, but it should at least be selling in the Top 50.
4. Marvel Team-Up, despite low sales and losing the big artistic draw of Scott Kolins (OK, he's not a mainstream draw, but he was one of the big reasons *I* was interested), gets a two-year commitment, which is cool for Robert Kirkman. Curious to see how this will do with the Spidey/Invincible issue, and this idea has spun off into the possible first podcast by me and Dave Farabee, possibly coming (if all technical details, like buying a microphone or two and figuring out bandwidth issues, go smoothly) early September.
5. New Warriors selling at 122, and it's one of the most interesting and unusual books Marvel is publishing. And Gravity, another of Marvel's new and interesting characters, sells lower than that. And Livewires, one of the best and freshest books Marvel has published in the last three years, sells lower than both of them. This kind of thing just pisses me off and depresses me.
6. Marc Oliver Frisch has this to say about top-selling All-Star Batman and Robin: "Of course, the book came with two different covers, but so did most of the titles listed above. For now, it seems unlikely that this number is going to be surpassed by anything anytime soon. If INFINITE CRISIS or ALL STAR SUPERMAN manage it, just pretend you never read that. I'd be surprised if they do, though -- for all intents and purposes, I suspect "Batman by Frank Miller and Jim Lee" exhausts all the potential the direct market is able to muster at this point."
From a retailer standpoint (again, anecdotal and based on gut feeling), I'm betting that INFINITE CRISIS will outsell it. I know that at my store, despite a higher price tag for IC than ASB&RTBW (I just wanted to abbreviate it), we ordered almost 40% higher (three digits instead of two), and that's just for my location, the smallest of the three stores in the chain. I'm also curious to see how the sales maintain on All-Star now that the reaction has been more akin to the response to Dark Knight Strikes Again than, say, Hush. Of course, Dark Knight Strikes Again sold gangbusters as well, but it only had to maintain for three issues, not twelve or more.
7. JLA - Again, anecdotally, we've sold out or damn close to it with all the issues of the Heinberg/Johns arc, so I doubt that retailers are sitting on much unsold stock.
8. Frisch points out the numerical possibility of Liefeld dropping the sales on Teen Titans, rather than giving the expected bump, and I can only hope that's true. Not because I wish Liefeld any harm, but because I've seen the issue, and good God that art is actually just as bad as or worse than some of Liefeld's most egregious stuff. The bendy Wonder Girl and immensely-thighed bad guy at the end are two of the more notable art gaffes, but Robin's "here's my crotch!" opening leap is pretty bad too. (Note: This is as close to a review as I'm going to do of this issue of Teen Titans, because those are the only three pages I've seen and they made my eyes bleed a little.)
9. Another sanguine point from Frisch: "Still, this may be one of the downsides of the company's current direction at display: If you emphasize continuity and "event-driven" storytelling over individual titles and creative voices, those stories which don't participate in the big thing of the minute will have an increasingly hard time fending for the audience's attention." This in relation to the slightly dipping (but still healthy, I hasten to add) sales of Legion of Super-Heroes. I think he's dead-on, and I'm not sure DC cares, with all the money being made on the lazy cash-in... excuse me, crossover books.
10. Y: The Last Man sells at 81. You'd think I'd be outraged, given that these sales numerically are about 1,000 copies below Runaways, but I'm not, because Vertigo is a different game, and seeing Y outselling a Batman title (even if it's Legends of the Dark Knight) warms my cynical black heart.
11. Also promising, albeit maybe too little too late: Gotham Central, at chart position #116, is *climbing* in sales. Nothing climbs in sales in comics anymore, doesn't it? It's a slow slide into cancellation, right? (Unless you're John Byrne's more rabid fans, in which case it's a vast conspiracy designed to deprive your God...er, favorite artist... of work) The Goon, at position #151, is also climbing, and about to get a bump from the 25 cent issue, and Invincible, in position #173, is climbing as well. This may mostly be because the sales are low enough that buzz and a few new readers can actually affect chart position at this level, because the gains are usually between 100-400 readers at best.
12. Hellboy: The Island was about 5K higher than the last Hellboy miniseries. Does this mean that the Hellboy movie netted 5,000 more comics fans for the title? I can't decide if that's really low or a pretty decent gain. Probably both.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Infernal Affairs:
After having this from Netflix for a week or so, I decided I was more in the mood to watch it than Donnie Darko, and popped it in the DVD player last night. I don't watch a lot of foreign film, but the buzz on this one had been great, and the buzz wasn't wrong.
The basic high concept is that a young cop goes undercover in the mob, and a young mobster goes undercover in the cops. This is all set up in a great montage/clipped storytelling style in the first eight minutes, and we're into the movie. It is not an action movie, despite fitting nicely into the "Hong Kong" sensibilities of something like Hard Boiled or The Killer. Instead, it's more of a suspense/psychological thriller, with a strong noir tone. The difficulties of going undercover, the questions of identity and loyalty, are all dealt with very well, and there are several nice twists and turns as the story progresses to its reasonably unpredictable, bittersweet ending. Fans of Sleeper especially should check out Infernal Affairs, as there's some definite commonality of theme, tone and even some of the common story elements of an undercover tale.
I know that they're working on an American remake of this movie, and I hope that they go the route of something like The Italian Job, taking the premise only and making a completely different film, because it's hard to imagine most American film stars and directors getting this story in quite the same way.
Now I'm sort of in the mood to finally see Donnie Brasco, and Infernal Affairs also inspired some ideas for the new Spycraft 2.0 campaign I'm starting soon.
After having this from Netflix for a week or so, I decided I was more in the mood to watch it than Donnie Darko, and popped it in the DVD player last night. I don't watch a lot of foreign film, but the buzz on this one had been great, and the buzz wasn't wrong.
The basic high concept is that a young cop goes undercover in the mob, and a young mobster goes undercover in the cops. This is all set up in a great montage/clipped storytelling style in the first eight minutes, and we're into the movie. It is not an action movie, despite fitting nicely into the "Hong Kong" sensibilities of something like Hard Boiled or The Killer. Instead, it's more of a suspense/psychological thriller, with a strong noir tone. The difficulties of going undercover, the questions of identity and loyalty, are all dealt with very well, and there are several nice twists and turns as the story progresses to its reasonably unpredictable, bittersweet ending. Fans of Sleeper especially should check out Infernal Affairs, as there's some definite commonality of theme, tone and even some of the common story elements of an undercover tale.
I know that they're working on an American remake of this movie, and I hope that they go the route of something like The Italian Job, taking the premise only and making a completely different film, because it's hard to imagine most American film stars and directors getting this story in quite the same way.
Now I'm sort of in the mood to finally see Donnie Brasco, and Infernal Affairs also inspired some ideas for the new Spycraft 2.0 campaign I'm starting soon.
Monday, August 22, 2005
My Future in Manga:
I've gotten a few manga recommendations from my readers in response to my most recent Monitor Duty column (but not a lot, leading me to believe that a lot more folks read my reviews and Down the Line than anything else I write... which is perfectly cool by me), and I think I've mapped out some of the manga I want to try out in the coming months.
1. Blame by Tsutomu Nihei (Wolverine: Snikt). Love his art, although the story didn't instantly grab me when I flipped through the early pages. Also hasn't sold a single copy at my store yet, leading me to believe my taste in manga is going to be just as off-the-popular track as my taste in comics, movie, TV and seemingly everything else these days.
2. Saikano - I've had two recommendations on this one, which is about, according to one reader, "a high school student and his girlfriend, who becomes the Army's ultimate weapon." Sounds interesting.
3. Peacemaker - Same reader recommended this as a "historically-based samurai drama" that deals with the beginning of the westernization of Japan. That sounds like fascinating subject matter.
4. Planetes - I've heard nothing but good about this story of space-age debris removal specialists (space garbagemen and women), and it's relatively short, so I'll definitely be giving it a shot.
5. Yotsuba! by Kiyohiko Azuma - Heard good things about this one as well, although I confess I don't know exactly what it's about.
6. Cromartie High School - No readers recommended this one, but two of my friends read and love it, and I'll probably check it out to see if it's as funny as I've been told.
7. Monster - Looks awesome, and I can't wait to read it. I covered this one in a recent Down the Line column.
8. Battle Royale - Honestly, I've already read a volume of this, but having seen the addiction that overcame my friends and how they've had to wait for the later volumes, I'm gonna wait out the last couple of volumes showing up so I can read the whole thing in one shot.
That's not all, and it will definitely depend on what I'm in the mood to read as to when I get to these, but that's at least a snapshot of some of the manga I want to try out.
Oh, and in the meaningless anniversary department, yesterday marks a whole month of me doing daily blog updates. So maybe I actually am going to be able to keep up with that schedule after all.
I've gotten a few manga recommendations from my readers in response to my most recent Monitor Duty column (but not a lot, leading me to believe that a lot more folks read my reviews and Down the Line than anything else I write... which is perfectly cool by me), and I think I've mapped out some of the manga I want to try out in the coming months.
1. Blame by Tsutomu Nihei (Wolverine: Snikt). Love his art, although the story didn't instantly grab me when I flipped through the early pages. Also hasn't sold a single copy at my store yet, leading me to believe my taste in manga is going to be just as off-the-popular track as my taste in comics, movie, TV and seemingly everything else these days.
2. Saikano - I've had two recommendations on this one, which is about, according to one reader, "a high school student and his girlfriend, who becomes the Army's ultimate weapon." Sounds interesting.
3. Peacemaker - Same reader recommended this as a "historically-based samurai drama" that deals with the beginning of the westernization of Japan. That sounds like fascinating subject matter.
4. Planetes - I've heard nothing but good about this story of space-age debris removal specialists (space garbagemen and women), and it's relatively short, so I'll definitely be giving it a shot.
5. Yotsuba! by Kiyohiko Azuma - Heard good things about this one as well, although I confess I don't know exactly what it's about.
6. Cromartie High School - No readers recommended this one, but two of my friends read and love it, and I'll probably check it out to see if it's as funny as I've been told.
7. Monster - Looks awesome, and I can't wait to read it. I covered this one in a recent Down the Line column.
8. Battle Royale - Honestly, I've already read a volume of this, but having seen the addiction that overcame my friends and how they've had to wait for the later volumes, I'm gonna wait out the last couple of volumes showing up so I can read the whole thing in one shot.
That's not all, and it will definitely depend on what I'm in the mood to read as to when I get to these, but that's at least a snapshot of some of the manga I want to try out.
Oh, and in the meaningless anniversary department, yesterday marks a whole month of me doing daily blog updates. So maybe I actually am going to be able to keep up with that schedule after all.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
A Somewhat Odd Weekend Schedule:
We did ordering of comics for the month at the store today, which always throws my schedule off a bit. It was off even more this week, since we were short-handed (one of the employees is at GenCon) so I didn't get my usual tradeoff day off (Thursday for Sunday), but I did get some overtime pay (a rarity), which isn't a bad tradeoff.
At any rate, I'm always ready to get out of the store on Saturday night, but I'm especially ready when I have to close the store at 9:00 and then get up the next morning at 8:30 to go to ordering. So last night, the store got unusually busy from 8:30 to 9:00, and then literally one minute before the store closed, a guy came in, went to the bathroom and was in there for ten minutes after I closed and shooed everyone else out. A regular also showed up a little after 9:00 and asked if he could buy his week's comics, and he's a good customer, so of course I let him do that. So I was running about 15 minutes behind when I finally got everyone out and got the door locked.
While counting down the register, I got a phone call from one of these Internet relay places. They're a great idea, in theory, that a deaf person or someone who can't use the phone for whatever reason uses a relay to type messages which are then relayed to me, and they then type messages back. Like I said, it's a great tool... but this method of communication takes a lot more time, and when this was the phone call I got at 9:15 and I hadn't finished shutting the register down yet, I was mildly annoyed.
I became greatly annoyed when it became clear that the phone call was either a scam or a prank. The conversation went like this, once the relay was established. Imagine a two or three minute delay between each question and answer. It was also clear that whoever was typing was either not a native English speaker or a very slow typist. "Do you carry toys and games?" "Yes, we carry some toys and games." "Do you carry PS/2 and Game Boy Advance games and teddy bears?" "No, we mostly carry board and card games. No teddy bears." "Can you give me some brand names?" "I'm not sure I can help you. I should mention that I'm closed right now." "I need to buy some games and toys and have them shipped for my client in Nigeria. We will pay for them." Warning bells going off at this point. "We don't do shipping. I don't really think I can help you. Goodbye." Three minute wait, followed by me asking the relay person "Are we done, I really need to get my store closed down?" After a minute, she responded that the other end had said "OK, goodbye. Thank you!"
It was all a little genial to be a prank, and I suppose it's possible it was legitimate, but I think I basically endured the equivalent of voice spam. Which would have been annoying enough, but I was ready to leave anyway.
When I got home, as usual, I stayed up way too late (around 3:00, watching Arrested Development on Tivo, reading the Adam Strange: Planet Heist TPB, etc.) and had about five hours of sleep. So when I got home at around 4:30, I basically sat in the chair and fell asleep at around 5:30 and drifted in and out until, well, around now. Most likely I'll be up a while tonight as well, since my schedule is just bizarrely thrown off at this point. Tomorrow is errand day, though... need to take the car back to the mechanic (the low radiator fluid light is still blinking, even after the radiator flush), mow the lawn (it's about two weeks overdue), pay some bills and get some more reviews done.
For those of you who come here from Fourth Rail and just waded through this exceptionally boring personal story consisting mostly of whining and bitching, I'm sorry. The relevant portion is that because of my weird schedule, I haven't gotten many reviews done... a half-dozen Snapshots (which I traditionally hold for Thursday's update), a review of Tokyopop's MBQ Vol. 1 and half a review of The Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck. Don is out of town, so we'll have a Tuesday update instead of a Monday this week, and quite possibly nothing from me. I may instead save everything I've got to run on Thursday.
We did ordering of comics for the month at the store today, which always throws my schedule off a bit. It was off even more this week, since we were short-handed (one of the employees is at GenCon) so I didn't get my usual tradeoff day off (Thursday for Sunday), but I did get some overtime pay (a rarity), which isn't a bad tradeoff.
At any rate, I'm always ready to get out of the store on Saturday night, but I'm especially ready when I have to close the store at 9:00 and then get up the next morning at 8:30 to go to ordering. So last night, the store got unusually busy from 8:30 to 9:00, and then literally one minute before the store closed, a guy came in, went to the bathroom and was in there for ten minutes after I closed and shooed everyone else out. A regular also showed up a little after 9:00 and asked if he could buy his week's comics, and he's a good customer, so of course I let him do that. So I was running about 15 minutes behind when I finally got everyone out and got the door locked.
While counting down the register, I got a phone call from one of these Internet relay places. They're a great idea, in theory, that a deaf person or someone who can't use the phone for whatever reason uses a relay to type messages which are then relayed to me, and they then type messages back. Like I said, it's a great tool... but this method of communication takes a lot more time, and when this was the phone call I got at 9:15 and I hadn't finished shutting the register down yet, I was mildly annoyed.
I became greatly annoyed when it became clear that the phone call was either a scam or a prank. The conversation went like this, once the relay was established. Imagine a two or three minute delay between each question and answer. It was also clear that whoever was typing was either not a native English speaker or a very slow typist. "Do you carry toys and games?" "Yes, we carry some toys and games." "Do you carry PS/2 and Game Boy Advance games and teddy bears?" "No, we mostly carry board and card games. No teddy bears." "Can you give me some brand names?" "I'm not sure I can help you. I should mention that I'm closed right now." "I need to buy some games and toys and have them shipped for my client in Nigeria. We will pay for them." Warning bells going off at this point. "We don't do shipping. I don't really think I can help you. Goodbye." Three minute wait, followed by me asking the relay person "Are we done, I really need to get my store closed down?" After a minute, she responded that the other end had said "OK, goodbye. Thank you!"
It was all a little genial to be a prank, and I suppose it's possible it was legitimate, but I think I basically endured the equivalent of voice spam. Which would have been annoying enough, but I was ready to leave anyway.
When I got home, as usual, I stayed up way too late (around 3:00, watching Arrested Development on Tivo, reading the Adam Strange: Planet Heist TPB, etc.) and had about five hours of sleep. So when I got home at around 4:30, I basically sat in the chair and fell asleep at around 5:30 and drifted in and out until, well, around now. Most likely I'll be up a while tonight as well, since my schedule is just bizarrely thrown off at this point. Tomorrow is errand day, though... need to take the car back to the mechanic (the low radiator fluid light is still blinking, even after the radiator flush), mow the lawn (it's about two weeks overdue), pay some bills and get some more reviews done.
For those of you who come here from Fourth Rail and just waded through this exceptionally boring personal story consisting mostly of whining and bitching, I'm sorry. The relevant portion is that because of my weird schedule, I haven't gotten many reviews done... a half-dozen Snapshots (which I traditionally hold for Thursday's update), a review of Tokyopop's MBQ Vol. 1 and half a review of The Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck. Don is out of town, so we'll have a Tuesday update instead of a Monday this week, and quite possibly nothing from me. I may instead save everything I've got to run on Thursday.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
I Am a Bad Friend:
Despite the frequent ads in Speakeasy and having talked to him about it before it launched, I realize now that I have never actually linked over to Buzzscope, a comics/games/pop culture site that is run and supported by a number of friends past and present. Jon Haehnle is their producer/designer, and Joe Doughrity their senior comics editor, and I worked with both those guys during my time at Psycomic, and the site is sponsored by Midtown Comics, which was my comics shop for the six months I lived in New York. (I love Midtown Comics. I miss Midtown Comics.)
It's also worth noting that Joe just won Best Documentary at the San Diego Comicon's International Film Festival for his movie "Seven Days in Japan." You can catch the trailer HERE and see more about the movie and buy it online (only $10 plus shipping) HERE.
Despite the frequent ads in Speakeasy and having talked to him about it before it launched, I realize now that I have never actually linked over to Buzzscope, a comics/games/pop culture site that is run and supported by a number of friends past and present. Jon Haehnle is their producer/designer, and Joe Doughrity their senior comics editor, and I worked with both those guys during my time at Psycomic, and the site is sponsored by Midtown Comics, which was my comics shop for the six months I lived in New York. (I love Midtown Comics. I miss Midtown Comics.)
It's also worth noting that Joe just won Best Documentary at the San Diego Comicon's International Film Festival for his movie "Seven Days in Japan." You can catch the trailer HERE and see more about the movie and buy it online (only $10 plus shipping) HERE.
Metti-Publisher Round 1:
Wow, did I get a butt-kicking. Ranked 235 out of 290 players. Simone was definitely my top player, earning places for Villains United, Action Comics and Birds of Prey, with Peter David delivering three for Hulk (two issues) and Hulk: Destruction. Once some of his new stuff, like X-Factor and Fallen Angel, starts coming out that'll help. Most of the rest of my players had two books, many of them fairly low on the sales charts. No surprise, there... most of my favorite books are low on the sales charts.
However, I did beat out Augie by one place and I spotted Nate two places below him. So I take some solace in that. I take less solace in barely beating out folks whose entire teams were on the bench. *sigh* Guess I need to do some trading/moving around/thinking about this stuff.
Wow, did I get a butt-kicking. Ranked 235 out of 290 players. Simone was definitely my top player, earning places for Villains United, Action Comics and Birds of Prey, with Peter David delivering three for Hulk (two issues) and Hulk: Destruction. Once some of his new stuff, like X-Factor and Fallen Angel, starts coming out that'll help. Most of the rest of my players had two books, many of them fairly low on the sales charts. No surprise, there... most of my favorite books are low on the sales charts.
However, I did beat out Augie by one place and I spotted Nate two places below him. So I take some solace in that. I take less solace in barely beating out folks whose entire teams were on the bench. *sigh* Guess I need to do some trading/moving around/thinking about this stuff.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Weekly Comics to Come - Aug. 24, 2005
ALREADY READ:
Battle Pope Color #2 (More Battle Pope! In color!)
Catwoman Wild Ride Tp (The final Brubaker/Stewart Catwoman, which includes the "Road Trip" arc and the Captain Cold issue, one of my favorite issues of the entire run)
Daredevil #76 (I've been off this for a long time, and mostly I still am, but the early stuff in this issue between Urich and the Kingpin is really, really good)
Giffens What Were They Thinking One Shot (Keith Giffen re-dialogues old war comics. I've only skimmed it so far, but what I've read is exceptionally funny)
Girls #4 (This may be the most bizarre horror story I've ever read. The attack of the hot naked chicks?! Bizarre, but entertaining, and getting better with each issue)
Godland #2 (More cosmic style adventure by Casey and Scioli)
HAVEN'T READ:
1000 Deaths Of Baron Von Donut #1 (I can't remember what this is, but the title means I'll at least look)
Banana Sundays #2 (One of my favorite comics of the last month returns with a second issue. Might be my most anticipated read of the week)
Grounded #2 (Enjoyed the first issue of this unusual superhero story, looking forward to reading more)
Hank Ketchams Complete Dennis The Menace 1951-1952 Hc (Still surprised to be buying this, but the sample strips looked genuinely funny)
History Of Violence Tp (Might check this out now, if only because the other Paradox stuff has been pretty good and the premise, now that I know it, sounds interesting as well)
Invincible #25 (Yay! Big Invincible anniversary issue! Plus Science Dog!)
Jack Cross #1 (Looks like Warren Ellis's take on 24's Jack Bauer, with of course the usual touch of cynical detachment and some gorgeous art by Gary Erskine)
JSA Classified #2 (Part two of Power Girl's origin, and I'm still curious, although it looks like it's going to tie into Infinite Crisis, so I'm getting less so)
Little Star #4 (Issue three finally hooked me, so I'm eagerly anticipating more of Andi Watson's story of the trials of parenthood)
Monkey In A Wagon Vs Lemur On A Big Wheel #1 (What I saw of this strange book in San Diego was just ridiculously funny)
Mutation #2 (First issue of this had fantastic art and great fights, but no plot to speak of. Curious to see what the second issue will bring)
Previews #25.9 (Down the Line coming next week)
Queen & Country Declassified Vol 2 #2 (This is the one by Greg Rucka and Rick Burchett about Tom Wallace. It's late, but good)
Queen & Country Declassified Vol 3 #3 (This is the one by Antony Johnston and Christopher Mitten about Nick Poole. It's on time, and also good)
Robot (Digital Manga mostly does yaoi, but this looks like something different, a full-color manga anthology possibly along the lines of Flight)
Sesame Street Cinemanga Vol 1 Elmo & Zoe Fly A Kite (Probably buying this, and the other one, Happy Healthy Monster, for my daughter. She loves Elmo, Zoe and Sesame Street in general)
Smoke #3 (One of my favorite comic series of the year comes to a close. Amazing Igor Kordey art on this one, and De Campi's writing debut is also just exceptionally strong)
Spike Old Times One Shot (Not much of a Spike fan, but I do like Peter David... might give this one a look)
Walking Dead #21 (One of my favorite comics running right now)
ALREADY READ:Battle Pope Color #2 (More Battle Pope! In color!)
Catwoman Wild Ride Tp (The final Brubaker/Stewart Catwoman, which includes the "Road Trip" arc and the Captain Cold issue, one of my favorite issues of the entire run)
Daredevil #76 (I've been off this for a long time, and mostly I still am, but the early stuff in this issue between Urich and the Kingpin is really, really good)
Giffens What Were They Thinking One Shot (Keith Giffen re-dialogues old war comics. I've only skimmed it so far, but what I've read is exceptionally funny)
Girls #4 (This may be the most bizarre horror story I've ever read. The attack of the hot naked chicks?! Bizarre, but entertaining, and getting better with each issue)
Godland #2 (More cosmic style adventure by Casey and Scioli)
HAVEN'T READ:
1000 Deaths Of Baron Von Donut #1 (I can't remember what this is, but the title means I'll at least look)
Banana Sundays #2 (One of my favorite comics of the last month returns with a second issue. Might be my most anticipated read of the week)
Grounded #2 (Enjoyed the first issue of this unusual superhero story, looking forward to reading more)
Hank Ketchams Complete Dennis The Menace 1951-1952 Hc (Still surprised to be buying this, but the sample strips looked genuinely funny)
History Of Violence Tp (Might check this out now, if only because the other Paradox stuff has been pretty good and the premise, now that I know it, sounds interesting as well)
Invincible #25 (Yay! Big Invincible anniversary issue! Plus Science Dog!)
Jack Cross #1 (Looks like Warren Ellis's take on 24's Jack Bauer, with of course the usual touch of cynical detachment and some gorgeous art by Gary Erskine)
JSA Classified #2 (Part two of Power Girl's origin, and I'm still curious, although it looks like it's going to tie into Infinite Crisis, so I'm getting less so)
Little Star #4 (Issue three finally hooked me, so I'm eagerly anticipating more of Andi Watson's story of the trials of parenthood)
Monkey In A Wagon Vs Lemur On A Big Wheel #1 (What I saw of this strange book in San Diego was just ridiculously funny)
Mutation #2 (First issue of this had fantastic art and great fights, but no plot to speak of. Curious to see what the second issue will bring)
Previews #25.9 (Down the Line coming next week)
Queen & Country Declassified Vol 2 #2 (This is the one by Greg Rucka and Rick Burchett about Tom Wallace. It's late, but good)
Queen & Country Declassified Vol 3 #3 (This is the one by Antony Johnston and Christopher Mitten about Nick Poole. It's on time, and also good)
Robot (Digital Manga mostly does yaoi, but this looks like something different, a full-color manga anthology possibly along the lines of Flight)
Sesame Street Cinemanga Vol 1 Elmo & Zoe Fly A Kite (Probably buying this, and the other one, Happy Healthy Monster, for my daughter. She loves Elmo, Zoe and Sesame Street in general)
Smoke #3 (One of my favorite comic series of the year comes to a close. Amazing Igor Kordey art on this one, and De Campi's writing debut is also just exceptionally strong)
Spike Old Times One Shot (Not much of a Spike fan, but I do like Peter David... might give this one a look)
Walking Dead #21 (One of my favorite comics running right now)
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Found on Boing Boing:
New Cyberpunk comic that you can view online or download for your PSP. I managed to avoid the PSP's siren's call, but if they can actually turn it into a device for viewing comics on the go and it really works for that, I may not be strong enough to resist entirely.
Update: Five minutes later, after having read the first chapter... it's really damn good. Free, excellent cyberpunk comics on the web? Maybe the 21st century isn't all bad after all.
New Cyberpunk comic that you can view online or download for your PSP. I managed to avoid the PSP's siren's call, but if they can actually turn it into a device for viewing comics on the go and it really works for that, I may not be strong enough to resist entirely.
Update: Five minutes later, after having read the first chapter... it's really damn good. Free, excellent cyberpunk comics on the web? Maybe the 21st century isn't all bad after all.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Actually, it really is cool:
I know a lot of folks have some sort of beef with Ain't It Cool News, but I'm a supporter, partly because I live in Austin and so I feel like it's a local site, partly because I have a friend who writes comic reviews for the site and partly because, from time to time, the geeky style of the site hits me just right.
Which isn't to say that AICN doesn't occasionally annoy the shit out of me, or that the Talkbacks aren't some of the more diseased message boards on the Internet. But all that sort of fades away when you see Harry posting with sympathetic glee about a 12-year-old film-loving girl in Austin who just got a $1000 grant to do her first zombie movie. 12. Years. Old.
I don't care who you are, if that story doesn't make you smile, then you have no heart.
I know a lot of folks have some sort of beef with Ain't It Cool News, but I'm a supporter, partly because I live in Austin and so I feel like it's a local site, partly because I have a friend who writes comic reviews for the site and partly because, from time to time, the geeky style of the site hits me just right.
Which isn't to say that AICN doesn't occasionally annoy the shit out of me, or that the Talkbacks aren't some of the more diseased message boards on the Internet. But all that sort of fades away when you see Harry posting with sympathetic glee about a 12-year-old film-loving girl in Austin who just got a $1000 grant to do her first zombie movie. 12. Years. Old.
I don't care who you are, if that story doesn't make you smile, then you have no heart.
Fanboy Rampage:
I don't generally read Fanboy Rampage, because I'm roughly a year behind on catching up on who's who and what's what in the Blogosphere. But I do read The Beat, who linked to Fanboy Rampage and the enormous clusterfuck of a thread reacting to Paul O'Brien's Ninth Art column, which I also linked to a few days back.
It's funny, because I agree with almost everyone in the thread on some points, but it does seem like a lot of people are willfully missing the point. Some of them doing it in a way that has them acting quite a bit like assholes. I was gonna chime in, but really, I don't read the blog, I'm not a community member, I didn't want to crash such a lovely party and it was all pretty much over by the time I read it. So, this being the 21st century, I figured I'd do what everyone else is doing... type my thoughts on my blog.
What's interesting is that everyone (including Heidi) is offering up: "How can you be bored? Look how many indy comics are great this year!" And I think what everyone is missing, or maybe this isn't the point and I'm just off my rocker, is that these indy comics aren't selling anywhere near where they should be. That maybe Paul is bored because the boring shit is winning. It's all anyone talks about, and, if you look at the Diamond Top 100, it's all that sells.
Now again, maybe that wasn't Paul's point... but I think that's where the common ground is to be found. Or maybe there's a different emotion going on here with me, not boredom but frustration, that the things a great deal of us find so boring or reminiscent of comics we read 10-20 years ago, are pretty much dominating the top 50 or so of the mainstream comics market right now, and there's not enough rewards to go around for the really great stuff. I know that that's where I keyed into Paul's column, not "Gee, I wish the X-books were better," which is what some people seem to be taking away from it. Personally, I could give a shit whether the X-Books are even published anymore, but I *still* got what Paul was saying.
OK, I probably shouldn't post this, because God knows I don't want to get into the middle of the Internet infighting that I've tried really hard to stay away from in recent years, but... Jesus. That thread was one ginormous clusterfuck of misguided indy rage, with a few calm heads (including, as always, the well-spoken (well-typed?) Kurt Busiek) making sense above all the noise.
I don't generally read Fanboy Rampage, because I'm roughly a year behind on catching up on who's who and what's what in the Blogosphere. But I do read The Beat, who linked to Fanboy Rampage and the enormous clusterfuck of a thread reacting to Paul O'Brien's Ninth Art column, which I also linked to a few days back.
It's funny, because I agree with almost everyone in the thread on some points, but it does seem like a lot of people are willfully missing the point. Some of them doing it in a way that has them acting quite a bit like assholes. I was gonna chime in, but really, I don't read the blog, I'm not a community member, I didn't want to crash such a lovely party and it was all pretty much over by the time I read it. So, this being the 21st century, I figured I'd do what everyone else is doing... type my thoughts on my blog.
What's interesting is that everyone (including Heidi) is offering up: "How can you be bored? Look how many indy comics are great this year!" And I think what everyone is missing, or maybe this isn't the point and I'm just off my rocker, is that these indy comics aren't selling anywhere near where they should be. That maybe Paul is bored because the boring shit is winning. It's all anyone talks about, and, if you look at the Diamond Top 100, it's all that sells.
Now again, maybe that wasn't Paul's point... but I think that's where the common ground is to be found. Or maybe there's a different emotion going on here with me, not boredom but frustration, that the things a great deal of us find so boring or reminiscent of comics we read 10-20 years ago, are pretty much dominating the top 50 or so of the mainstream comics market right now, and there's not enough rewards to go around for the really great stuff. I know that that's where I keyed into Paul's column, not "Gee, I wish the X-books were better," which is what some people seem to be taking away from it. Personally, I could give a shit whether the X-Books are even published anymore, but I *still* got what Paul was saying.
OK, I probably shouldn't post this, because God knows I don't want to get into the middle of the Internet infighting that I've tried really hard to stay away from in recent years, but... Jesus. That thread was one ginormous clusterfuck of misguided indy rage, with a few calm heads (including, as always, the well-spoken (well-typed?) Kurt Busiek) making sense above all the noise.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Entourage:
I rented the first season of Entourage when it came out on DVD and really enjoyed it. The story of a young hot superstar actor on the rise and his hangers-on, agent and business manager could have been just ridiculously dull or hard to buy into, but I really enjoyed it and found it really funny. With all the buzz about season two involving Vince (the superstar) lining up to play Aquaman, it's been getting bigger play than usual in the geek sector, and so I've been hearing more and more about it.
So, finally, I broke down and decided I couldn't wait for season two on DVD, and went to my friend with HBO and Tivo and caught the first six episodes. And the second season is even better. It's funny, but I'm also just wrapped up in these characters' lives and their ridiculous problems, like whether they're going to get a multimillion dollar movie deal so they can keep their 4 million dollar house or who Eric, the manager of Vince and probably my second-favorite character, will wind up with after he's lost his girlfriend and had to settle for a one night stand with a Perfect 10 model.
I say second favorite character because, really, nobody can top Ari Gold, the super-arrogant, manic, insanely funny super-agent played by Jeremy Piven. I've always been a Piven fan, but Ari Gold is probably the best character he's ever played.
So, in short... Entourage. Really good. Sex and the City, but for guys. Together with Curb Your Enthusiasm and Deadwood, very much wearing down my resolve *not* to spend the extra money on HBO every month. The Fall season of network TV better be good, or I may have to break down and order the HBO.
I rented the first season of Entourage when it came out on DVD and really enjoyed it. The story of a young hot superstar actor on the rise and his hangers-on, agent and business manager could have been just ridiculously dull or hard to buy into, but I really enjoyed it and found it really funny. With all the buzz about season two involving Vince (the superstar) lining up to play Aquaman, it's been getting bigger play than usual in the geek sector, and so I've been hearing more and more about it.
So, finally, I broke down and decided I couldn't wait for season two on DVD, and went to my friend with HBO and Tivo and caught the first six episodes. And the second season is even better. It's funny, but I'm also just wrapped up in these characters' lives and their ridiculous problems, like whether they're going to get a multimillion dollar movie deal so they can keep their 4 million dollar house or who Eric, the manager of Vince and probably my second-favorite character, will wind up with after he's lost his girlfriend and had to settle for a one night stand with a Perfect 10 model.
I say second favorite character because, really, nobody can top Ari Gold, the super-arrogant, manic, insanely funny super-agent played by Jeremy Piven. I've always been a Piven fan, but Ari Gold is probably the best character he's ever played.
So, in short... Entourage. Really good. Sex and the City, but for guys. Together with Curb Your Enthusiasm and Deadwood, very much wearing down my resolve *not* to spend the extra money on HBO every month. The Fall season of network TV better be good, or I may have to break down and order the HBO.
Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland:
My buddy Chris (who put on a similar show here in Austin last year called STAPLE) is taking the trip up to Portland in October to go to the second Stumptown Comics Fest, which looks like a blast. I'm extremely jealous, and if I could manage the flight/hotel expenses, I'd be going too.
I really want to visit Portland at some point, and this would be a great excuse. Maybe next year. If any of you are in the Portland area, this looks like a great comics festival.
My buddy Chris (who put on a similar show here in Austin last year called STAPLE) is taking the trip up to Portland in October to go to the second Stumptown Comics Fest, which looks like a blast. I'm extremely jealous, and if I could manage the flight/hotel expenses, I'd be going too.
I really want to visit Portland at some point, and this would be a great excuse. Maybe next year. If any of you are in the Portland area, this looks like a great comics festival.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Car Update:
Went to my local oil change/tune-up place today, and they discovered that the antifreeze needed to be flushed, as it wasn't getting to the engine. That, and an oil change and a much-needed swap out of the windshield wiper blades, took care of the problems I've been having, and at just over $100, that's not too bad for routine maintenance. Nice when things aren't as expensive or catastrophic as you expect.
Went to my local oil change/tune-up place today, and they discovered that the antifreeze needed to be flushed, as it wasn't getting to the engine. That, and an oil change and a much-needed swap out of the windshield wiper blades, took care of the problems I've been having, and at just over $100, that's not too bad for routine maintenance. Nice when things aren't as expensive or catastrophic as you expect.
Car Trouble:I'm pretty good about taking my car in to get the oil changed, every 3,000 miles or so. But the car is getting older, and seems to be developing some... well, let's call them quirks. Twice in the last half-dozen oil changes, the mechanic has told me that the oil was either or basically gone, despite the fact that I hadn't waited any longer than usual to bring it in. The other four times, it was fine.
A few months ago, I started getting warnings from my car that the antifreeze was low. So, after much delay, I finally went out, bought some antifreeze and distilled water, and refilled the thing according to the owner's manual. Worked fine, but then last week, it started giving me the same warning. Seemed odd, but I refilled it again. And then, yesterday, not even a week later, it started warning me again. So I go to check the oil and find that it is very, very low again.
Guess it's oil change time today, a little ahead of schedule. The 90,000 mile checkup is coming, and I'm guessing that they're going to find something expensive when they do that check. Jeez. Maintenance, inspection, gas prices at 2.30 and rising... when is someone going to invent my water-powered flying car, already?
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Another Excellent Analysis of the Industry by Paul O'Brien:
Article 10: The Year Of Living Aimlessly is a brutally honest look at the trends that are driving the industry right now. The sad thing is, any number of people are saying what is wrong with the industry, but those voices are drowned out by the cha-ching of cash registers and the numerous people who are eating up the crossover/event marketing with a spoon.
Kind of like the '90s, really, except without the huge paychecks that at least allowed some of the creators to get rich off the crumbling of the American comics industry.
Article 10: The Year Of Living Aimlessly is a brutally honest look at the trends that are driving the industry right now. The sad thing is, any number of people are saying what is wrong with the industry, but those voices are drowned out by the cha-ching of cash registers and the numerous people who are eating up the crossover/event marketing with a spoon.
Kind of like the '90s, really, except without the huge paychecks that at least allowed some of the creators to get rich off the crumbling of the American comics industry.
Captain Boomerang:
How cool is this? When I got my mail yesterday upon coming home from a really rotten day at work, there was an envelope in it from Jim DiBartolo. Jim is the upcoming artist on Rex Mundi, and one of my Netflix friends, and we've talked about TV, movies, comics, etc. via email. When I saw him in San Diego, I asked if he was sketching and he said that he'd rather do something at home and send it to me. I asked about Captain Boomerang, and though he hadn't read Suicide Squad, he went and did some research and absolutely nailed the character in the picture you see below.
The scan really doesn't completely do it justice. It's terrific.
Of all the things I hated about Identity Crisis, I think the thing that most irked me personally was that Meltzer killed off Captain Boomerang. I know, it sounds stupid, but Boomerang was one of the coolest parts of one of my favorite comics, John Ostrander's Suicide Squad, and now he died like a punk, written by someone who clearly didn't get the character.
How cool is this? When I got my mail yesterday upon coming home from a really rotten day at work, there was an envelope in it from Jim DiBartolo. Jim is the upcoming artist on Rex Mundi, and one of my Netflix friends, and we've talked about TV, movies, comics, etc. via email. When I saw him in San Diego, I asked if he was sketching and he said that he'd rather do something at home and send it to me. I asked about Captain Boomerang, and though he hadn't read Suicide Squad, he went and did some research and absolutely nailed the character in the picture you see below.
The scan really doesn't completely do it justice. It's terrific.
Of all the things I hated about Identity Crisis, I think the thing that most irked me personally was that Meltzer killed off Captain Boomerang. I know, it sounds stupid, but Boomerang was one of the coolest parts of one of my favorite comics, John Ostrander's Suicide Squad, and now he died like a punk, written by someone who clearly didn't get the character.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Cool as Hell Comic Shops:
I'm proud of my store, don't get me wrong, but good lord, the new comics shops opening in New York just look so damn cool.
Rocketship is one, and Riot is the other. Go look at the design of these stores... they're just amazing.
I'm proud of my store, don't get me wrong, but good lord, the new comics shops opening in New York just look so damn cool.
Rocketship is one, and Riot is the other. Go look at the design of these stores... they're just amazing.
Netflix:
Just because I haven't mentioned it lately, I have to once again say how much I love Netflix. I wasn't sure when I first joined, a couple years ago, that it would be worth it. $20 a month for as many DVDs as I could rent sounded good in theory, but would I really watch enough to make it worth it? As it turned out, the answer was a very loud yes.
In recent weeks, I've caught the entirety of The Job, the series that Dennis Leary and Peter Tolan created before Rescue Me. I like Rescue Me a lot, and I think the second season has been even better than the first, but I think I liked The Job more. I really wanted to know what was going to happen to those characters, and while Leary's character in The Job was a jerk, I think Tommy Gavin (from Rescue Me) is more damaged. I've actually come to hate the character and start rooting against him at times. He's still interesting as hell to watch, but he crossed past likeable and sympathetic about four episodes ago.
This weekend, I've got a potpourri of indie or foreign films to watch. Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut (a cult flick I've never seen), Criminal (on a Maggie Gyllenhall kick after seeing her on The Daily Show, which began with a rental of Secretary) and Infernal Affairs (the Hong Kong flick about a cop undercover in the mob and a mobster undercover in the cops, which I've heard great stuff about.)
Now all I have to do is work about four more hours and I can get home and watch one or two of those movies.
Just because I haven't mentioned it lately, I have to once again say how much I love Netflix. I wasn't sure when I first joined, a couple years ago, that it would be worth it. $20 a month for as many DVDs as I could rent sounded good in theory, but would I really watch enough to make it worth it? As it turned out, the answer was a very loud yes.
In recent weeks, I've caught the entirety of The Job, the series that Dennis Leary and Peter Tolan created before Rescue Me. I like Rescue Me a lot, and I think the second season has been even better than the first, but I think I liked The Job more. I really wanted to know what was going to happen to those characters, and while Leary's character in The Job was a jerk, I think Tommy Gavin (from Rescue Me) is more damaged. I've actually come to hate the character and start rooting against him at times. He's still interesting as hell to watch, but he crossed past likeable and sympathetic about four episodes ago.
This weekend, I've got a potpourri of indie or foreign films to watch. Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut (a cult flick I've never seen), Criminal (on a Maggie Gyllenhall kick after seeing her on The Daily Show, which began with a rental of Secretary) and Infernal Affairs (the Hong Kong flick about a cop undercover in the mob and a mobster undercover in the cops, which I've heard great stuff about.)
Now all I have to do is work about four more hours and I can get home and watch one or two of those movies.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Weekly Comics to Come:For the week of August 17, 2005
ALREADY READ:
Batman Journey Into Knight #1 (I stopped reading when Batman explained to a thug that he was wearing a kevlar vest. Looks pretty dull, and the art by Tan Eng Huat is disappointing compared to his previous work as well.)
Birds Of Prey #85 (One of the few DC titles I'm still reading, and it continues to be great. I'm a little wary of the surprise on the last page, but I have enough faith in Simone to keep reading anyway. Solid martial arts action in this issue as well, although the two pencillers/two inkers thing hurts the artwork a little.)
Fragile Prophet #1 (Intriguing story about a young man and his little brother, who may have a psychic gift)
GI Spy #1 (Fun spy action book in World War II. Review HERE)
Hunger #3 (Really enjoying this one, an unusual zombie tale where the zombie is the protagonist, coming out from Speakeasy)
Livewires #6 (Good ending to a great miniseries, plenty of imaginative action and humor)
Noble Causes Vol 4 Blood & Water Tp (I think these are the stories where I started to be won back over to Noble Causes again, as it went back to full color and longer stories)
Runners Bad Goods Tp (Very entertaining spacefaring adventure. Review HERE)
Seven Soldiers Klarion The Witch Boy #3 (I'm starting to lose the plot a little, but there are still enough weird ideas and gorgeous art in the Seven Soldiers books to keep me reading)
Top Ten Beyond The Farthest Precinct #1 (I didn't have much faith in a non-Alan Moore Top 10 book, and this one didn't do anything to give me faith. If it weren't Top 10, one of my favorite books with all kinds of potential, I'd say it was just mediocre superheroics. As is, I'll say that it's pretty terrible.)
HAVEN'T READ:
Dragonlance Chronicles #1 (I read and enjoyed the Dragonlance trilogy when I was in high school. Not sure if my interest in the characters and story remains. Guess we'll see.)
GI Joe Snake-Eyes Declassified #1 (My GI Joe fandom has pretty well died out beyond nostalgia for the Marvel stuff, but they sent me a preview copy, so I'll at least take a look.)
Godland #2 (First issue was cosmic adventure fun with terrific artwork, looking forward to seeing the confrontation between hero and villain in issue two)
Maxx Book Five Tp (I think this is the final Maxx trade. At any rate, I've been picking all of them up, and though the story gets just bizarre as it goes on, the whole thing remains enjoyable and looks great.)
Of Bitter Souls #1 (New Speakeasy series with art by Norm Breyfogle, a favorite of mine from the '90s)
Queen Bee Sc (Really looking forward to Scholastic's offering from Chynna Clugston, about warring teenage girls with telekinetic powers)
Rex Libris #1 (The tale of an intergalactic librarian from Slave Labor Graphics. Could be fun.)
Rocketo #1 (I've read issue zero of this, and it was a little scattered storywise but gorgeous to look at, so I'll keep up for at least an issue or two)
Small Gods #10 (Start of a new story arc in the sci-fi/psychic/cop/crime book from Image. I missed the second arc for the most part, but the first trade and the Small Gods special were top notch.)
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Thursday night:
Almost lost the daily posting thing only a couple weeks in, but I got in just in time for a quick note about tonight's activities. My buddy Chris Nicholas is having a birthday tomorrow, and a party tomorrow, but tonight he went with a few friends who couldn't make the party to a Korean restaurant here in town.
I haven't had Korean food since I lived in New York, but I liked it then and I still like it now. We went to Korea House and had a great meal of duck, bacon, beef, pork and chicken bul gogi, which means it's cooked on the grill in the center of the table. There's also an assortment of veggie dishes, my favorite of which were the potatoes in sugar and of course the kimchee. Really good food, and I'll definitely go back.
After that, we retired to the nearby coffehouse Texspresso to grab a little dessert and chat for several hours about movies, books, politics, all the sorts of stuff that people talk about. An enjoyable evening with friends old and new.
Almost lost the daily posting thing only a couple weeks in, but I got in just in time for a quick note about tonight's activities. My buddy Chris Nicholas is having a birthday tomorrow, and a party tomorrow, but tonight he went with a few friends who couldn't make the party to a Korean restaurant here in town.
I haven't had Korean food since I lived in New York, but I liked it then and I still like it now. We went to Korea House and had a great meal of duck, bacon, beef, pork and chicken bul gogi, which means it's cooked on the grill in the center of the table. There's also an assortment of veggie dishes, my favorite of which were the potatoes in sugar and of course the kimchee. Really good food, and I'll definitely go back.
After that, we retired to the nearby coffehouse Texspresso to grab a little dessert and chat for several hours about movies, books, politics, all the sorts of stuff that people talk about. An enjoyable evening with friends old and new.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Want to be in a book?:
Neil Gaiman has the info on bidding to be in books by Gaiman, Michael Chabon, Stephen King, Lemony Snicket and Jonathan Lethem.
Neil Gaiman has the info on bidding to be in books by Gaiman, Michael Chabon, Stephen King, Lemony Snicket and Jonathan Lethem.
Fantasy Football - but with comics:
I probably should have posted this *before* the draft, since I now think it's basically closed until the next "season," but I followed a link a week or two back to Metti Publisher, a fantasy football style thing for comics.
For those who don't know fantasy football, basically you pick real players, add them to your fake teams and then your fake team performance is judged by the real stats that the players rack up during the season. With Metti Publisher, you "draft" a handful of writers and artists, put them into positions and then your score is judged by the position those writers/artists (and more importantly, the titles they work on) rank in the top 100.
It was an interesting challenge, because most of the writers and artists I really like aren't super-popular and the industry does tend to reward characters over creators, so the safe bet is to pick whoever is on Infinite Crisis, Superman, Spider-Man, etc. My inclination if I'm playing a "fantasy" league, though, is to pick the writers and artists I would actually employ if I had my own publisher, and could let them create their own titles from their own imaginations.
I think I hit a pretty good balance, though. My draft came through today and I've got a pretty decent bench: Gail Simone and Robert Kirkman (my Monthly Writers), Dan Slott and Peter David (my Special Writers), Andy Diggle and Sean McKeever (temporarily on my bench) are on the writing side. Pascal Ferry and Michael Lark (my Monthly Artists), Phil Hester and Scott Kolins (my Special Artists), Cameron Stewart and Cliff Chiang (Cover Artists) and Mike Huddleston, Frazer Irving and Darwyn Cooke (temporarily on my bench).
As you can see, it's definitely not my ideal real world publishing plan. In truth, if I wasn't judging on whether they're prolific and successful enough to be in the top 100 more often, I'd be putting all the guys on my bench into the field, and I'd probably have both Darwyn Cooke and Phil Hester on the writing staff as well. But it's not supposed to be an ideal representation of publishing, just kind of a fun game that plays using some of the numbers in the industry. I'm curious to see how I do, but given that my emphasis these days is on books that are mostly selling outside the top 100, I'm betting I won't place too well. I did get some of the buzz and up and coming creators, though, so that may pay off for me.
I was kind of amused to see that I knew a lot of the names in the game, but not necessarily in my league. Steve Rolston happens to be in my league, which is cool, but my local friend Nate Southard is playing and I found out not from talking to him on Friday or Saturday but by seeing his name in one of the other leagues. The strange wonders of the Internet at work.
I probably should have posted this *before* the draft, since I now think it's basically closed until the next "season," but I followed a link a week or two back to Metti Publisher, a fantasy football style thing for comics.
For those who don't know fantasy football, basically you pick real players, add them to your fake teams and then your fake team performance is judged by the real stats that the players rack up during the season. With Metti Publisher, you "draft" a handful of writers and artists, put them into positions and then your score is judged by the position those writers/artists (and more importantly, the titles they work on) rank in the top 100.
It was an interesting challenge, because most of the writers and artists I really like aren't super-popular and the industry does tend to reward characters over creators, so the safe bet is to pick whoever is on Infinite Crisis, Superman, Spider-Man, etc. My inclination if I'm playing a "fantasy" league, though, is to pick the writers and artists I would actually employ if I had my own publisher, and could let them create their own titles from their own imaginations.
I think I hit a pretty good balance, though. My draft came through today and I've got a pretty decent bench: Gail Simone and Robert Kirkman (my Monthly Writers), Dan Slott and Peter David (my Special Writers), Andy Diggle and Sean McKeever (temporarily on my bench) are on the writing side. Pascal Ferry and Michael Lark (my Monthly Artists), Phil Hester and Scott Kolins (my Special Artists), Cameron Stewart and Cliff Chiang (Cover Artists) and Mike Huddleston, Frazer Irving and Darwyn Cooke (temporarily on my bench).
As you can see, it's definitely not my ideal real world publishing plan. In truth, if I wasn't judging on whether they're prolific and successful enough to be in the top 100 more often, I'd be putting all the guys on my bench into the field, and I'd probably have both Darwyn Cooke and Phil Hester on the writing staff as well. But it's not supposed to be an ideal representation of publishing, just kind of a fun game that plays using some of the numbers in the industry. I'm curious to see how I do, but given that my emphasis these days is on books that are mostly selling outside the top 100, I'm betting I won't place too well. I did get some of the buzz and up and coming creators, though, so that may pay off for me.
I was kind of amused to see that I knew a lot of the names in the game, but not necessarily in my league. Steve Rolston happens to be in my league, which is cool, but my local friend Nate Southard is playing and I found out not from talking to him on Friday or Saturday but by seeing his name in one of the other leagues. The strange wonders of the Internet at work.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Comic Book Magazines:
Coming off a weak Chicago Con scheduled too close to San Diego and of course the Atlanta/Heroes Con fiasco, I'm sensing the backlash against the premier offline comics magazine Wizard. You can get a sense of it in Heidi's report and Augie's report, to name two sources.
Which got me thinking, maybe it's time for someone to launch a new comics magazine. Wizard has been under assault for years now because they basically represent the industry to a lot of folks (the monthly sales at one time were higher than any monthly comic, and anecdotal evidence from my experience in retail shows that a lot of readers are still taking their cues from Wizard and little else), and the face they put on the industry is one that is maybe a little childish, certainly driven more by hype and "hotness" than quality and artistic achievement.
That's to be expected, really. Why have so many comics magazines (Hero, Combo, etc.) fallen by the wayside when Wizard survived and thrived? It's because Wizard has something that Spider-Man, X-Men, Superman and the rest have... they're established. Familiar. Comfortable. They got established by riding one of the last waves of new stuff that broke through to the general public, the emergence of Valiant and Image publishers.
In other words, they rode to prominence during the speculator age. Speculation and hype and style over substance is coded into Wiard's DNA. Sadly, it also seems to be present in the DNA of a lot of comics readers these days, and so there's a vicious cycle of Wizard hyping the stuff that's already popular, people buying the stuff that is popular, and Wizard reports on what people are buying. You can't really fault Wizard for being what they are, just as you can't fault a lot of folks for being frustrated that the primary face of our industry represents some of the worst aspects of it.
But could a new magazine knock Wizard off the perch? Offer up a slightly more adult viewpoint, without becoming too dry, too old school or too snobby? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say: Nope. The place once held by print has been subsumed to a great deal by online media, and it would be damn near impossible (if not actually impossible) for a print source to compete with what's being done by literally hundreds of people whose turnaround time from source to print is minutes or hours and whose geographical spread means that it's essentially a 24 hour news cycle. It might be different if these folks were all amateurs, but most of them (or, more immodestly, us) have been at this for years, and many come from a background with ties to the published world of comics.
Better yet, the Internet comics journalism world is free. So a new magazine would have to be so good as to overwhelm not only the longstanding stranglehold Wizard has on that segment of the market, but to make consumers think "even though I can get the same news, interviews and reviews online, this has *something* worth paying for in it." It's not an impossible task, but it's definitely an uphill one.
Sorry if that was all a bit scattered. Just some thoughts I was having. And I didn't even touch on Comic Buyer's Guide, The Comics Journal or any of the other magazines that are also covering the industry these days, or my thoughts on the downsides of the free Internet economy for those who are actually providing the news, interviews and reviews.
Coming off a weak Chicago Con scheduled too close to San Diego and of course the Atlanta/Heroes Con fiasco, I'm sensing the backlash against the premier offline comics magazine Wizard. You can get a sense of it in Heidi's report and Augie's report, to name two sources.
Which got me thinking, maybe it's time for someone to launch a new comics magazine. Wizard has been under assault for years now because they basically represent the industry to a lot of folks (the monthly sales at one time were higher than any monthly comic, and anecdotal evidence from my experience in retail shows that a lot of readers are still taking their cues from Wizard and little else), and the face they put on the industry is one that is maybe a little childish, certainly driven more by hype and "hotness" than quality and artistic achievement.
That's to be expected, really. Why have so many comics magazines (Hero, Combo, etc.) fallen by the wayside when Wizard survived and thrived? It's because Wizard has something that Spider-Man, X-Men, Superman and the rest have... they're established. Familiar. Comfortable. They got established by riding one of the last waves of new stuff that broke through to the general public, the emergence of Valiant and Image publishers.
In other words, they rode to prominence during the speculator age. Speculation and hype and style over substance is coded into Wiard's DNA. Sadly, it also seems to be present in the DNA of a lot of comics readers these days, and so there's a vicious cycle of Wizard hyping the stuff that's already popular, people buying the stuff that is popular, and Wizard reports on what people are buying. You can't really fault Wizard for being what they are, just as you can't fault a lot of folks for being frustrated that the primary face of our industry represents some of the worst aspects of it.
But could a new magazine knock Wizard off the perch? Offer up a slightly more adult viewpoint, without becoming too dry, too old school or too snobby? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say: Nope. The place once held by print has been subsumed to a great deal by online media, and it would be damn near impossible (if not actually impossible) for a print source to compete with what's being done by literally hundreds of people whose turnaround time from source to print is minutes or hours and whose geographical spread means that it's essentially a 24 hour news cycle. It might be different if these folks were all amateurs, but most of them (or, more immodestly, us) have been at this for years, and many come from a background with ties to the published world of comics.
Better yet, the Internet comics journalism world is free. So a new magazine would have to be so good as to overwhelm not only the longstanding stranglehold Wizard has on that segment of the market, but to make consumers think "even though I can get the same news, interviews and reviews online, this has *something* worth paying for in it." It's not an impossible task, but it's definitely an uphill one.
Sorry if that was all a bit scattered. Just some thoughts I was having. And I didn't even touch on Comic Buyer's Guide, The Comics Journal or any of the other magazines that are also covering the industry these days, or my thoughts on the downsides of the free Internet economy for those who are actually providing the news, interviews and reviews.
Monday, August 08, 2005
My Weekend:
This was a relatively busy weekend for me. My wife and I drove down (along with my buddy Nate) to Beerland at around 9:30, 10:00 on Saturday to go and see The Blue Flames open for The Flametrick Subs. The Flames were good, but the Flametrick Subs (and Satan's Cheerleaders) were, as always, great. It was a late night, and by the time Suzanne and I got home, it was about 2:15 and we were exhausted, but it was a lot of fun.
Sunday I slept in, but then went out with my friend Chris to meet Andrew Boyd and his girlfriend Robyn (whose name I hope I didn't misspell) for the Texas Rollergirls Roller Derby championship. I'd never been out to Roller Derby, but I'll definitely go again, as it was a lot of fun. I regretted sitting on the floor for the first half, as my legs were killing me, but Chris and I stood for the second half and had a good time. I think by the end we'd almost figured out how the game was played!
Today, I slept in (again... my weekend routine is to catch up on sleep) and then mostly bummed around. Put more antifreeze in the car (I think it needs a tune-up, but I'm holding out because there's only about 500 miles until the next oil change, which is close enough to just go ahead and to the 90,000 mile service), played with Katy, cooked up some teriyaki chicken on the grill (good) with a cheesy potatoes and broccoli packaged thing I got at HEB (not so good) and then installed Thunderbird to replace Outlook Express. After a few false starts with password stuff, I'm enjoying it as much as I enjoyed the changeover from Internet Explorer to Firefox... love the RSS reader capabilities. I thought I was enjoying RSS links in Firefox, but having the content "pushed" to my email reader is even better.
And now... I go to forage for snacks, play some more Burnout 3 on the PS/2, watch more of The Job: The Complete Series (currently rented from Netflix) and maybe even get something productive done like taking some pictures for my upcoming next round of eBay auctions.
(Hey, don't look at me... I said right upfront that daily updates meant they'd often be more boring than usual. ;)
This was a relatively busy weekend for me. My wife and I drove down (along with my buddy Nate) to Beerland at around 9:30, 10:00 on Saturday to go and see The Blue Flames open for The Flametrick Subs. The Flames were good, but the Flametrick Subs (and Satan's Cheerleaders) were, as always, great. It was a late night, and by the time Suzanne and I got home, it was about 2:15 and we were exhausted, but it was a lot of fun.
Sunday I slept in, but then went out with my friend Chris to meet Andrew Boyd and his girlfriend Robyn (whose name I hope I didn't misspell) for the Texas Rollergirls Roller Derby championship. I'd never been out to Roller Derby, but I'll definitely go again, as it was a lot of fun. I regretted sitting on the floor for the first half, as my legs were killing me, but Chris and I stood for the second half and had a good time. I think by the end we'd almost figured out how the game was played!
Today, I slept in (again... my weekend routine is to catch up on sleep) and then mostly bummed around. Put more antifreeze in the car (I think it needs a tune-up, but I'm holding out because there's only about 500 miles until the next oil change, which is close enough to just go ahead and to the 90,000 mile service), played with Katy, cooked up some teriyaki chicken on the grill (good) with a cheesy potatoes and broccoli packaged thing I got at HEB (not so good) and then installed Thunderbird to replace Outlook Express. After a few false starts with password stuff, I'm enjoying it as much as I enjoyed the changeover from Internet Explorer to Firefox... love the RSS reader capabilities. I thought I was enjoying RSS links in Firefox, but having the content "pushed" to my email reader is even better.
And now... I go to forage for snacks, play some more Burnout 3 on the PS/2, watch more of The Job: The Complete Series (currently rented from Netflix) and maybe even get something productive done like taking some pictures for my upcoming next round of eBay auctions.
(Hey, don't look at me... I said right upfront that daily updates meant they'd often be more boring than usual. ;)
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Wizard World Chicago - That's it?:
While I was in San Diego, like most folks, I missed what was actually announced at San Diego. Came home to a veritable deluge of news from the major and minor publishers, which took me a few days to really catch up on. Since I wasn't going to Chicago, I figured I'd be able to read the news as it came in and keep up better. And I was able to do that... but that had a lot to do with the trickle of actual news.
Now granted, some of the big announcements mean little or nothing to me. I'm no fan of Michael Turner's work, so I couldn't care less about whether he's doing all his company-owned stuff at Marvel or DC, and I'm no big fan of Joe Mad's stuff either, although I do think the drubbing he's likely to take from Battle Chasers fans about finishing the work he started is well-deserved. Jeph Loeb at Marvel is mildly interesting, as I always like his stuff with Sale a little bit better at Marvel, but given that I'm off most of the big books at Marvel and DC, it hardly matters to me who is writing them, because I'm not likely to be reading or enjoying them. And Brubaker/Lark on Daredevil is the worst kept secret in comics, so that hardly counts as a major announcement... more like an expected and overdue confirmation.
No, mostly it seemed to be the companies patting themselves on the back over how great their comics are. Ultimate Universe - The Gold Standard. Odd, then, that the sales and buzz on those titles is slipping, isn't it? Crisis Counseling. Yes, we get it, Infinite Crisis is going to infect (excuse me, affect) every single book in the DC Universe. Things aren't going to be cheery and light in the wake of House of M? Well, gee, given how the new "grim 'n gritty" is selling, that's a shocker. Wizard's reputation for hyping stuff that's already popular ought to get a boost out of this Con, since that's pretty much what seemed to be going on.
You'll all have to pardon me for being a killjoy... but my vague feelings that the worst of the '90s has made a return in a newer, tougher-to-kill form were just strengthened by all the hype (excuse me, news) coming out of Chicago.
While I was in San Diego, like most folks, I missed what was actually announced at San Diego. Came home to a veritable deluge of news from the major and minor publishers, which took me a few days to really catch up on. Since I wasn't going to Chicago, I figured I'd be able to read the news as it came in and keep up better. And I was able to do that... but that had a lot to do with the trickle of actual news.
Now granted, some of the big announcements mean little or nothing to me. I'm no fan of Michael Turner's work, so I couldn't care less about whether he's doing all his company-owned stuff at Marvel or DC, and I'm no big fan of Joe Mad's stuff either, although I do think the drubbing he's likely to take from Battle Chasers fans about finishing the work he started is well-deserved. Jeph Loeb at Marvel is mildly interesting, as I always like his stuff with Sale a little bit better at Marvel, but given that I'm off most of the big books at Marvel and DC, it hardly matters to me who is writing them, because I'm not likely to be reading or enjoying them. And Brubaker/Lark on Daredevil is the worst kept secret in comics, so that hardly counts as a major announcement... more like an expected and overdue confirmation.
No, mostly it seemed to be the companies patting themselves on the back over how great their comics are. Ultimate Universe - The Gold Standard. Odd, then, that the sales and buzz on those titles is slipping, isn't it? Crisis Counseling. Yes, we get it, Infinite Crisis is going to infect (excuse me, affect) every single book in the DC Universe. Things aren't going to be cheery and light in the wake of House of M? Well, gee, given how the new "grim 'n gritty" is selling, that's a shocker. Wizard's reputation for hyping stuff that's already popular ought to get a boost out of this Con, since that's pretty much what seemed to be going on.
You'll all have to pardon me for being a killjoy... but my vague feelings that the worst of the '90s has made a return in a newer, tougher-to-kill form were just strengthened by all the hype (excuse me, news) coming out of Chicago.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
So this is what Saturday morning looks like:
I must say, I don't care for it. Sure, it's pretty, sun is shining, birds are singing, but it's just so damn early! As a result of one person being on vacation this week and my desire to get off early to go to the Flametrick Subs show tonight, I volunteered to switch shifts with the other manager and get up at 8:00 on Saturday to work the 9-5 shift. Fortunately, gaming didn't go as long as it usually does (usually around 2 or 3, last night it was more like 10:30), although I stupidly went home and watched TV until around 1:30 anyway. I'm a night person, and just have trouble sleeping until it's gotten past midnight by an hour or two.
Fortunately, there is caffeine. And caffeine is good.
I must say, I don't care for it. Sure, it's pretty, sun is shining, birds are singing, but it's just so damn early! As a result of one person being on vacation this week and my desire to get off early to go to the Flametrick Subs show tonight, I volunteered to switch shifts with the other manager and get up at 8:00 on Saturday to work the 9-5 shift. Fortunately, gaming didn't go as long as it usually does (usually around 2 or 3, last night it was more like 10:30), although I stupidly went home and watched TV until around 1:30 anyway. I'm a night person, and just have trouble sleeping until it's gotten past midnight by an hour or two.
Fortunately, there is caffeine. And caffeine is good.
Friday, August 05, 2005
Weekly Comics to Come:
For the week of August 10, 2005
For the week of August 10, 2005
ALREADY READ:Action Comics #830 (Still the best Superman title, but the Infinite Crisis tie-ins are weakening my interest, and villain of choice in this issue gets on my nerves fast)
Adam Strange Planet Heist Tp (Fantastic action adventure with gorgeous artwork. Given that I'm enjoying Rann-Thanagar War, the follow-up, for the most part, I'll almost certainly pick this up)
Box Office Poison Complete New Edition Tp (Good to see this back in print. Review HERE)
Captain America #8 (Not crazy about the whole Winter Soldier plot, but Brubaker does a good job of selling the explanation in this issue and has some nice action as depicted by Epting)
Fables #40 (The Adversary revealed! Maybe? It's a fun issue with some great revelations, and Little Boy Blue continues to be an unexpectedly great badass action hero)
Gravity #3 (Continues to be one of Marvel's best books, with an old school Spider-Man vibe and a story you couldn't really do with Spider-Man)
Incredible Hulk #85 (Tied with House of M: Fantastic Four for the best thing to come out of the House of M. Peter David is making great use of the new Scorpion and her backstory for this story, and it's sort of off to the side of the House of M story, so you can enjoy it as just an alternate history tale)
Mage Vol 2 The Hero Defined Hc (First hardcover was terrific, second story is even better, been waiting for this. Hope there are no (or at least fewer) typos in this deluxe hardcover, though)
New Warriors #3 (So much fun. The secret origin of Microbe, the team deals with a flat tire and we see their producer's pitch meeting with the network for the Warriors reality show, which is hysterical. Also, the best art of Skottie Young's career so far)
Runaways Vol 1 Hc (The whole first volume in one giant hardcover. If not for the Top Shelf releases, would probably be my favorite read of the week)
Spiral Bound Gn (Review coming soon, but this all-ages treat about secret newspapers, a monster in the park, sculpting classes and a variety of other things is a great read)
The King Gn (Really terrific story based on the myth of the living Elvis. Review HERE)
Tricked Gn (Alex Robinson's new graphic novel, an ensemble piece about fame, secrets from the past and romance, among other things. Review HERE)
HAVEN'T READ:
100 Bullets #63 (With the war between the Trust and the Minutemen heating up, this book remains one of my must-read titles)
Cast #1-2 (This one was apparently big in the Phillipines, it's about a boy who decides to try out for drama at an all-girl school and features some really nice art)
Concrete Vol 1 Depths Tp (Looking forward to seeing Dark Horse's repackaging of Concrete... especially since I haven't read a lot of the Concrete stories yet)
Ferro City #1 (Very nice looking art on this "robot noir," hoping the story is as good)
Hero At Large #1 (Superhero comedy from Speakeasy)
Mort Grim (Buzz book from San Diego, I have a copy but haven't read it yet)
Rann Thanagar War #4 (A bit sprawling, but kind of fun space opera/action stuff so far)
Seven Soldiers Zatanna #3 (Hooray! More Seven Soldiers! This one has a snarky and fun sense of humor and gorgeous artwork by Ryan Sook)
True Story Swear To God #14 (Always good to see another issue of Tom Beland's autobiographical/romance/humor book)
Villains United #4 (The Suicide Squad vibe and general skill of Gail Simone keeps me hooked into this one despite its deep Infinite Crisis ties, although I do hope that the original artist (Eaglesham) returns for issue four)
Thursday, August 04, 2005
This Just In:
Matt Haley is awesome. Check out these commissions on his site, and keep an eye out for his work on G.I. Spy #1, as well as some sweet-looking covers for Firestorm and Hawkman.
Just happened to be surfing the web and pointed out to his site and figured I'd give other folks a pointer to these cool commission sketches. It's amazing how many cool original pieces of art are out there on these artist's pages... Scott Morse and The Wildstorm guys are two more examples.
Matt Haley is awesome. Check out these commissions on his site, and keep an eye out for his work on G.I. Spy #1, as well as some sweet-looking covers for Firestorm and Hawkman.
Just happened to be surfing the web and pointed out to his site and figured I'd give other folks a pointer to these cool commission sketches. It's amazing how many cool original pieces of art are out there on these artist's pages... Scott Morse and The Wildstorm guys are two more examples.
More Comics Stuff:
You'll note on the left column of the blog that I've added a couple more comics-related touches. I've got a Current Favorite Monthly Titles, which is my counterpart to Current Favorite TV series, as well as my five favorite first issues of the month and my ten favorite graphic novel reads of the month.
A couple things of note in how I organize these things, for those who care. These listings are alphabetical, not by rank of how much I liked them in comparison. I've narrowed it down to five or ten, beyond that is further narrowing of which one I liked best than I want to do on a monthly basis, at least right now. My criteria for what makes the list is when I read them, not necessarily when they were published. And thirdly, I was pretty strict on the monthly series, in that it has to be a series that is solicited and actually printed monthly, and it has to be either ongoing or a long ongoing (at least 30 issues) instead of a limited series. This is why, for example, The Atheist (bimonthly), True Story Swear to God (bimonthly) and Livewires (limited series) didn't make the list. In each case, I've provided a link for the listing, usually to one of my reviews (for further info on my opinion), but in the case of the monthly books and books I haven't reviewed, I've provided links to official publisher or creator sites or the best source of info I could find relatively easily.
Finally, the updates are for the month of July... August just barely started. So all my favorites will be anywhere from a week to a full month old, but these are meant to be sort of "standing" preferences anyway.
I may, if I feel ambitious enough, start doing a Favorite Miniseries of the month and Favorite Indie Books listing at some point... but not yet. My plan is to update these lists every month, although I reserve the right to do it more frequently or less frequently as the mood strikes me.
You'll note on the left column of the blog that I've added a couple more comics-related touches. I've got a Current Favorite Monthly Titles, which is my counterpart to Current Favorite TV series, as well as my five favorite first issues of the month and my ten favorite graphic novel reads of the month.A couple things of note in how I organize these things, for those who care. These listings are alphabetical, not by rank of how much I liked them in comparison. I've narrowed it down to five or ten, beyond that is further narrowing of which one I liked best than I want to do on a monthly basis, at least right now. My criteria for what makes the list is when I read them, not necessarily when they were published. And thirdly, I was pretty strict on the monthly series, in that it has to be a series that is solicited and actually printed monthly, and it has to be either ongoing or a long ongoing (at least 30 issues) instead of a limited series. This is why, for example, The Atheist (bimonthly), True Story Swear to God (bimonthly) and Livewires (limited series) didn't make the list. In each case, I've provided a link for the listing, usually to one of my reviews (for further info on my opinion), but in the case of the monthly books and books I haven't reviewed, I've provided links to official publisher or creator sites or the best source of info I could find relatively easily.
Finally, the updates are for the month of July... August just barely started. So all my favorites will be anywhere from a week to a full month old, but these are meant to be sort of "standing" preferences anyway.
I may, if I feel ambitious enough, start doing a Favorite Miniseries of the month and Favorite Indie Books listing at some point... but not yet. My plan is to update these lists every month, although I reserve the right to do it more frequently or less frequently as the mood strikes me.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Spycraft 2.0:
It's been a little while since I've done a gaming-related post. Yesterday marked the release of Spycraft 2.0 (or at least, my first chance to buy it). I loved the original d20 Spycraft, in large part for the Chase rules that were so innovative in building an exciting mechanic into a relatively non-combat part of the game. I felt it could use some tweaking, and the additional rules being bolted on from the supplements were getting to be too much.
Enter Spycraft 2.0. It's still not perfect (there's a ton of rules here, and I can't help but feel that paring those down would have made it more approachable, and I still hate that a grenade can potentially do basically nothing to someone standing next to it), but it's got a lot of improvements and all that I loved about the original system.
Notable improvements: A speeding-up of the "gearing up" process (which bogged down every Spycraft game I played), introduction of "interrogation, infiltration" and a few other mechanics along the chase lines, a revision of the skills system and an expansion of the core classes without losing all the really good ones.
I'm excited about playing Spycraft again, although I'm curious how my players are going to react when they have to rebuild their characters from the ground up using their original concepts and the 2.0 rules.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
The Basement Tapes:
If you're not reading Comic Book Resources's The Basement Tapes, a weekly back and forth about various industry topics by Matt Fraction and Joe Casey, you should be. While I don't always agree with them, and in fact sometimes vehemently disagree, this is smart, funny and eloquent discourse on the industry.
Today's topics: Retailers and publishers, and the relationships between them. This gets discussed a lot, usually by folks who don't know their ass from their head, let alone the vagaries of publishing and retailing. Again, there are some things in this column that I think are 100% wrong, but there's a lot of interesting discussion there.
I know Fraction has done his time in retail, and you can tell in the way he talks about the realities of the situation. I'm not sure about Casey, but I'd guess he hasn't, because he does have some ideas about the direct market that haven't been borne out by my five or six years working in that side of the market. For example, the notion that DC or Marvel should send out full copies of their most spoilerific hypefests to every retailer, trusting the retailer not to spoil it for customers, is a remarkably bad idea. For every one or two retailers who would properly use that information to order more efficiently, there are a dozen who would mark it up and sell it to their customers, and the stuff would wind up on Ebay about five minutes after the previews hit the retail level.
Fraction, I think, has some sympathy for the burden on a retailer's time, but he missed a point, I think, in talking about web resources for smaller publishers. These web resources are a fantastic idea, and any retailer worth his salt spends some time on the Internet checking up on the latest in comics news and indie publisher previews, but... there are way too many independent publishers for any retailer to keep up with all of them. No mystery about one reason or another, it's just a matter of time as the resources pile up.
Note that this isn't my column on retailing. These are a couple of the points that came up in my head from reading The Basement Tapes, and this happens every single time I read the column. It always gets me thinking, analyzing, wondering about the industry and the mechanisms that make it work.
If you're not reading Comic Book Resources's The Basement Tapes, a weekly back and forth about various industry topics by Matt Fraction and Joe Casey, you should be. While I don't always agree with them, and in fact sometimes vehemently disagree, this is smart, funny and eloquent discourse on the industry.
Today's topics: Retailers and publishers, and the relationships between them. This gets discussed a lot, usually by folks who don't know their ass from their head, let alone the vagaries of publishing and retailing. Again, there are some things in this column that I think are 100% wrong, but there's a lot of interesting discussion there.
I know Fraction has done his time in retail, and you can tell in the way he talks about the realities of the situation. I'm not sure about Casey, but I'd guess he hasn't, because he does have some ideas about the direct market that haven't been borne out by my five or six years working in that side of the market. For example, the notion that DC or Marvel should send out full copies of their most spoilerific hypefests to every retailer, trusting the retailer not to spoil it for customers, is a remarkably bad idea. For every one or two retailers who would properly use that information to order more efficiently, there are a dozen who would mark it up and sell it to their customers, and the stuff would wind up on Ebay about five minutes after the previews hit the retail level.
Fraction, I think, has some sympathy for the burden on a retailer's time, but he missed a point, I think, in talking about web resources for smaller publishers. These web resources are a fantastic idea, and any retailer worth his salt spends some time on the Internet checking up on the latest in comics news and indie publisher previews, but... there are way too many independent publishers for any retailer to keep up with all of them. No mystery about one reason or another, it's just a matter of time as the resources pile up.
Note that this isn't my column on retailing. These are a couple of the points that came up in my head from reading The Basement Tapes, and this happens every single time I read the column. It always gets me thinking, analyzing, wondering about the industry and the mechanisms that make it work.
Monday, August 01, 2005
A New Job:
No, I don't have one. Truthfully, I suck at looking, I hate looking and I haven't been doing the reading of classified, the constant updating of resumes and the networking required to get one. I enjoy my current job enough that I'm not desperate to get out (as I was when I was working at Austin Community College as a marketing assistant), but I'm also realistic that I don't really want to be managing a comics shop for nine bucks an hour when I'm forty, if I can avoid it. The realization that I probably won't be getting another raise, ever, no matter how well I do my job, hits me every now and then and makes me realize that it's foolish to stay in this job.
Problem, of course, being that I have no idea what else I want to do. I have no real desire to go back to school and learn a new trade, if only because there aren't any trades I'm dying to learn. I have a lot of expertise in customer service, a pretty vast knowledge of comics and other pop culture and a mind with a bent for organizing, but when I combine these traits, what I get is the equation that I'm perfectly suited for... managing a comic book store. And I'm not quite rich or gutsy enough to try opening a new comics shop in a hotly contested area like Austin, and I don't want to move away in the name of opening a new shop in an area I don't know. Truthfully, I don't want to move away at all, but I probably would if I could find a job with some growth potential in an area I liked (such as California or the Pacific Northwest or even New York, now that I've gotten more used to the idea of the city).
So yeah, this is mostly me bitching about job stuff. But y'know, if anybody has any suggestions (or even better, good job opportunities), drop me a line.
No, I don't have one. Truthfully, I suck at looking, I hate looking and I haven't been doing the reading of classified, the constant updating of resumes and the networking required to get one. I enjoy my current job enough that I'm not desperate to get out (as I was when I was working at Austin Community College as a marketing assistant), but I'm also realistic that I don't really want to be managing a comics shop for nine bucks an hour when I'm forty, if I can avoid it. The realization that I probably won't be getting another raise, ever, no matter how well I do my job, hits me every now and then and makes me realize that it's foolish to stay in this job.
Problem, of course, being that I have no idea what else I want to do. I have no real desire to go back to school and learn a new trade, if only because there aren't any trades I'm dying to learn. I have a lot of expertise in customer service, a pretty vast knowledge of comics and other pop culture and a mind with a bent for organizing, but when I combine these traits, what I get is the equation that I'm perfectly suited for... managing a comic book store. And I'm not quite rich or gutsy enough to try opening a new comics shop in a hotly contested area like Austin, and I don't want to move away in the name of opening a new shop in an area I don't know. Truthfully, I don't want to move away at all, but I probably would if I could find a job with some growth potential in an area I liked (such as California or the Pacific Northwest or even New York, now that I've gotten more used to the idea of the city).
So yeah, this is mostly me bitching about job stuff. But y'know, if anybody has any suggestions (or even better, good job opportunities), drop me a line.
New Mini-Comics Review Blog:
Found this link off of The Beat, as Size Matters, a new blog by Shawn Hoke, has been set up to review mini-comics. I'm a big fan of the format, and glad to see these comics (which sometimes are more creatively satisfying than the work that's being professionally produced, and often are a "first look" at creators who will become big talents in the medium) getting a spotlight on a regular basis.
Found this link off of The Beat, as Size Matters, a new blog by Shawn Hoke, has been set up to review mini-comics. I'm a big fan of the format, and glad to see these comics (which sometimes are more creatively satisfying than the work that's being professionally produced, and often are a "first look" at creators who will become big talents in the medium) getting a spotlight on a regular basis.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Million Dollar Baby:
I rented this from Netflix just before I left for San Diego, and finally got around to watching it on Friday night. I was completely impressed, even with all the hype and awards that surrounded the flick. Amazing performances from Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman, fantastic writing and great dialogue from Paul Haggis and beautiful shot composure by Eastwood and his crew. Yes, it's got a downbeat ending, but it's not as depressing as I was expecting, and I found a lot of the early part of the movie quite funny and quite moving as well. The boxing matches in particular are shot really well.
I rented this from Netflix just before I left for San Diego, and finally got around to watching it on Friday night. I was completely impressed, even with all the hype and awards that surrounded the flick. Amazing performances from Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman, fantastic writing and great dialogue from Paul Haggis and beautiful shot composure by Eastwood and his crew. Yes, it's got a downbeat ending, but it's not as depressing as I was expecting, and I found a lot of the early part of the movie quite funny and quite moving as well. The boxing matches in particular are shot really well.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Comic Collecting Software:
I've just never been organized enough to put my comics into a database. Well, organized isn't probably the right word. Maybe I've been too lazy to sit down for what's likely to be a weekend or two to input all my comics in so that I've got a good record of them. I had a couple failed attempts with MS Excel about 7-8 years ago, and before that with some rinky-dink Mac program I don't even remember, but both times I gave up about one or two longboxes in.
However, it's a good idea, and for those less lazy than I, I provide this link to Comic Keeper, a new comics database software that retails for $25-30, rather than the $250-300 that the granddaddy of them all, Comic Base, goes for. If you've always wanted to computerize your collection info but didn't want to drop hundreds, this is definitely worth a look.
I've just never been organized enough to put my comics into a database. Well, organized isn't probably the right word. Maybe I've been too lazy to sit down for what's likely to be a weekend or two to input all my comics in so that I've got a good record of them. I had a couple failed attempts with MS Excel about 7-8 years ago, and before that with some rinky-dink Mac program I don't even remember, but both times I gave up about one or two longboxes in.
However, it's a good idea, and for those less lazy than I, I provide this link to Comic Keeper, a new comics database software that retails for $25-30, rather than the $250-300 that the granddaddy of them all, Comic Base, goes for. If you've always wanted to computerize your collection info but didn't want to drop hundreds, this is definitely worth a look.
Friday, July 29, 2005
Weekly Comics to Come:
For the week of August 3, 2005
ALREADY READ:
Fantastic Four Unstable Molecules Tp (It lacks a punchy ending or a really strong structure, but it's got some great moments and terrific Guy Davis artwork, so I'm glad to see Marvel reprinting it. Now how about a trade of Thing - Night Falls on Yancy Street, which was one of the best Fantastic Four stories Marvel has published in years?)
Gotham Central #34 (The Teen Titans come in to talk about the supposed death of Robin, and the politics of cops and Batman are explored when one of the cops takes a shot at him - Another great issue)
Hero Squared #1 (Not just an also-ran companion to Formerly Known as the Justice League and Defenders, this is Giffen/DeMatteis on an original concept, and with this first issue of the miniseries, I've warmed up considerably - review coming soon)
Hip Flask Mystery City (It's not entirely coherent this time out, but it's beautiful, as all the Ladronn-illustrated Hip Flask stories have been - an annual treat)
Pvp #0 (Mostly a "clip show" for new readers, but also has a really sweet "secret origin of Skull" new feature, and it's 50 cents!)
Sandman Presents Thessaly Witch For Hire Tp (Bill Willingham's Thessaly miniseries isn't as great as his Fables work, but it's still pretty entertaining)
Season Of The Witch #0 (The first issue of a new fantasy series, with some solid action, a likable heroine and great artwork)
Stupid Comics #3 (More Mahfood-y goodness!)
Y The Last Man #36 (A focus on Beth, Yorick's long-lost girlfriend, and what's she up to, as good as the book always is)
HAVEN'T READ:
Antique Bakery Gn Vol 1 (Lene Taylor and Ginger Mayerson covered this on their podcast, and while it definitely doesn't sound up my alley, the insanity of the premise, the execution and the (I kid you not) scratch and sniff cover is too strangely compelling not to mention)
Fantastic Four House Of M #2 (Probably the best thing to come out of House of M so far, as John Layman explores what happens to the other master supervillains when one of them takes over)
Grimjack Killer Instinct #6 (The return of Grimjack concludes - hope we'll see more Grimjack soon)
Jsa #76 (I think the Day of Vengeance tie-ins and various other Infinite Crisis flavorings may have killed my interest in this book, as they have so many others in the DCU)
Justice #1 (Krueger, Ross and Braithwaite turn their attention to a grimmer, grittier Superfriends. Could wind up being great old school kind of fun, but these are the guys who bored me to tears on Universe X, so we'll see)
Karma Incorporated #1 (Folks in the business of revenge for money from Viper Comics - I'm expecting dark comedy)
Legend Of Grimjack Vol 3 Tp (Yay, more classic Grimjack reprinted from IDW!)
Lions Tigers & Bears Tp (The first issue of this was all-ages fun, and then I lost track of it, so I need to check this trade out)
Marvel 1602 New World #1 (Not real optimistic about a continuation of Gaiman's 1602, which I wasn't crazy about in the first place, but Pak and Tocchini both have talent, so I'll at least give it a look)
Marvel Visionaries John Romita Sr Hc (Love these Visionaries hardcover, love Romita Sr.'s work)
Mnemovore #4 (The story lost me a little bit on the last issue, but the art continues to impress and I'm hoping that the story will rope me back in as well)
Serenity #2 (Enjoyed the first issue quite a bit, looking forward to the second one)
Ted Noodleman Bicycle Delivery Boy Tp (Early work by Ryan Ottley, the glimpse I had in San Diego looked pretty solid)
Top Ten The Forty Niners Hc (Alan Moore and Gene Ha present the last Top 10 story, or at least the last one with Moore's name attached, and thus the last one for me)
Wildsiderz #1 (J. Scott Campbell returns with a concept that sounds Saturday morning cartoon inspired, and which could be fun - although the preview book was not terribly promising)
For the week of August 3, 2005
ALREADY READ:
Fantastic Four Unstable Molecules Tp (It lacks a punchy ending or a really strong structure, but it's got some great moments and terrific Guy Davis artwork, so I'm glad to see Marvel reprinting it. Now how about a trade of Thing - Night Falls on Yancy Street, which was one of the best Fantastic Four stories Marvel has published in years?)
Gotham Central #34 (The Teen Titans come in to talk about the supposed death of Robin, and the politics of cops and Batman are explored when one of the cops takes a shot at him - Another great issue)
Hero Squared #1 (Not just an also-ran companion to Formerly Known as the Justice League and Defenders, this is Giffen/DeMatteis on an original concept, and with this first issue of the miniseries, I've warmed up considerably - review coming soon)
Hip Flask Mystery City (It's not entirely coherent this time out, but it's beautiful, as all the Ladronn-illustrated Hip Flask stories have been - an annual treat)
Pvp #0 (Mostly a "clip show" for new readers, but also has a really sweet "secret origin of Skull" new feature, and it's 50 cents!)
Sandman Presents Thessaly Witch For Hire Tp (Bill Willingham's Thessaly miniseries isn't as great as his Fables work, but it's still pretty entertaining)
Season Of The Witch #0 (The first issue of a new fantasy series, with some solid action, a likable heroine and great artwork)
Stupid Comics #3 (More Mahfood-y goodness!)
Y The Last Man #36 (A focus on Beth, Yorick's long-lost girlfriend, and what's she up to, as good as the book always is)
HAVEN'T READ:
Antique Bakery Gn Vol 1 (Lene Taylor and Ginger Mayerson covered this on their podcast, and while it definitely doesn't sound up my alley, the insanity of the premise, the execution and the (I kid you not) scratch and sniff cover is too strangely compelling not to mention)
Fantastic Four House Of M #2 (Probably the best thing to come out of House of M so far, as John Layman explores what happens to the other master supervillains when one of them takes over)
Grimjack Killer Instinct #6 (The return of Grimjack concludes - hope we'll see more Grimjack soon)
Jsa #76 (I think the Day of Vengeance tie-ins and various other Infinite Crisis flavorings may have killed my interest in this book, as they have so many others in the DCU)
Justice #1 (Krueger, Ross and Braithwaite turn their attention to a grimmer, grittier Superfriends. Could wind up being great old school kind of fun, but these are the guys who bored me to tears on Universe X, so we'll see)
Karma Incorporated #1 (Folks in the business of revenge for money from Viper Comics - I'm expecting dark comedy)
Legend Of Grimjack Vol 3 Tp (Yay, more classic Grimjack reprinted from IDW!)
Lions Tigers & Bears Tp (The first issue of this was all-ages fun, and then I lost track of it, so I need to check this trade out)
Marvel 1602 New World #1 (Not real optimistic about a continuation of Gaiman's 1602, which I wasn't crazy about in the first place, but Pak and Tocchini both have talent, so I'll at least give it a look)
Marvel Visionaries John Romita Sr Hc (Love these Visionaries hardcover, love Romita Sr.'s work)
Mnemovore #4 (The story lost me a little bit on the last issue, but the art continues to impress and I'm hoping that the story will rope me back in as well)
Serenity #2 (Enjoyed the first issue quite a bit, looking forward to the second one)
Ted Noodleman Bicycle Delivery Boy Tp (Early work by Ryan Ottley, the glimpse I had in San Diego looked pretty solid)
Top Ten The Forty Niners Hc (Alan Moore and Gene Ha present the last Top 10 story, or at least the last one with Moore's name attached, and thus the last one for me)
Wildsiderz #1 (J. Scott Campbell returns with a concept that sounds Saturday morning cartoon inspired, and which could be fun - although the preview book was not terribly promising)
Thursday, July 28, 2005
More Stuff to Review:
I've already covered the stuff that needs reviewing from San Diego, here's what makes up the majority of my comp pile at the moment: Dark Horse Book of the Dead, Conan #15-17, Chronicles of Conan Vols. 5-7, Conan Vol. 1 (yep, there's a Conan feature in the offing), 2 Sisters, Ojo TPB, The Wandering Schoolgirl, Nothing Left to Lose, Punish the Dead, The Ride, Iron Ghost #2, Firestorm #14-15, Zombie King #0, Qwerty, Billy the Kid's Old-Timey Oddities #2-3, Children of the Grave #1-3, Johnny Raygun #1-4, Tabloia #575-576, The Norm Magazine #6-7, Ghostbusters #1-4, Night #1-2, Symbiotes #2-4, Helios #2-3, Club 9 Vol. 3, Small Gods Special #1, PVP #0, Season of the Witch #0, Guncandy #1, Body Bags #1, Bonerest #1, Grounded #1, Battle Pope #1, Wildguard: Fool's Gold #1-2, The Gatesville Company #1, The Atheist #2, Invincible #24, Armor X #4, The Walking Dead #20, Hero Camp #3, Girls #3, Stupid Comics #3, Star Wars Empire #32, Man With the Screaming Brain #3, Usagi Yojimbo #85, Strange Girl #2 and Mickey Mouse Meets Blotman.
That's not all that's getting reviewed... two things not on the comp pile that are in the soon to be reviewed pile are Teenagers From Mars TPB (finally bought this and really liked it) and Godland #1 (haven't read yet, but looking forward to it), and there will certainly be some other DC/Marvel stuff along the way, but that's a pretty good look at 90% of what I'll be covering in the next few weeks (and probably longer to get to some of it.)
I've already covered the stuff that needs reviewing from San Diego, here's what makes up the majority of my comp pile at the moment: Dark Horse Book of the Dead, Conan #15-17, Chronicles of Conan Vols. 5-7, Conan Vol. 1 (yep, there's a Conan feature in the offing), 2 Sisters, Ojo TPB, The Wandering Schoolgirl, Nothing Left to Lose, Punish the Dead, The Ride, Iron Ghost #2, Firestorm #14-15, Zombie King #0, Qwerty, Billy the Kid's Old-Timey Oddities #2-3, Children of the Grave #1-3, Johnny Raygun #1-4, Tabloia #575-576, The Norm Magazine #6-7, Ghostbusters #1-4, Night #1-2, Symbiotes #2-4, Helios #2-3, Club 9 Vol. 3, Small Gods Special #1, PVP #0, Season of the Witch #0, Guncandy #1, Body Bags #1, Bonerest #1, Grounded #1, Battle Pope #1, Wildguard: Fool's Gold #1-2, The Gatesville Company #1, The Atheist #2, Invincible #24, Armor X #4, The Walking Dead #20, Hero Camp #3, Girls #3, Stupid Comics #3, Star Wars Empire #32, Man With the Screaming Brain #3, Usagi Yojimbo #85, Strange Girl #2 and Mickey Mouse Meets Blotman.
That's not all that's getting reviewed... two things not on the comp pile that are in the soon to be reviewed pile are Teenagers From Mars TPB (finally bought this and really liked it) and Godland #1 (haven't read yet, but looking forward to it), and there will certainly be some other DC/Marvel stuff along the way, but that's a pretty good look at 90% of what I'll be covering in the next few weeks (and probably longer to get to some of it.)
Why Heidi MacDonald is awesome:
I've read a lot of Con reports, written one of my own, but this is probably the best overview of the general "vibe" of San Diego that I've read. And she never even uses the "show with no buzz" catchphrase that has become the default description, either.
I've read a lot of Con reports, written one of my own, but this is probably the best overview of the general "vibe" of San Diego that I've read. And she never even uses the "show with no buzz" catchphrase that has become the default description, either.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Flametrick Subs:
So it looks like I'll be heading out with some of my group of friends to see the Flametrick Subs (and Satan's Cheerleaders) on Saturday, August 6th at Beerland. I'm working until 10, of course, so I'll be arriving a little late, but the Flametrick shows are always a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to it.
In other news... leaky ceilings are no fun, whether you have them at home (the knowledge that I am going to have to replace our entire roof at some point haunts me) or work (there's a big 'ol leak in front of our counter at work). I'm just saying.
So it looks like I'll be heading out with some of my group of friends to see the Flametrick Subs (and Satan's Cheerleaders) on Saturday, August 6th at Beerland. I'm working until 10, of course, so I'll be arriving a little late, but the Flametrick shows are always a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to it.
In other news... leaky ceilings are no fun, whether you have them at home (the knowledge that I am going to have to replace our entire roof at some point haunts me) or work (there's a big 'ol leak in front of our counter at work). I'm just saying.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
We don't need no water:
So I woke up around 11:45 (hey, cut me some slack, I was up until 3:30) and my wife is saying "If you can take a shower in about five minutes, you better do it, they're about to shut off the water."
Turns out that when they were working in our neighbor's yard yesterday, it was on the water main, and so today they're turning off the water for the whole street. So I rushed through my shower, got my teeth brushed and got dressed. When I came back in to shave (electric razor, thankfully) a few minutes later and tried to rinse out the sink... no water.
Glad I'm going to work, but I feel sorry for my wife and daughter, who are here without water for several hours. It'd probably drive me nuts, just knowing that it wasn't there if I needed it.
So I woke up around 11:45 (hey, cut me some slack, I was up until 3:30) and my wife is saying "If you can take a shower in about five minutes, you better do it, they're about to shut off the water."
Turns out that when they were working in our neighbor's yard yesterday, it was on the water main, and so today they're turning off the water for the whole street. So I rushed through my shower, got my teeth brushed and got dressed. When I came back in to shave (electric razor, thankfully) a few minutes later and tried to rinse out the sink... no water.
Glad I'm going to work, but I feel sorry for my wife and daughter, who are here without water for several hours. It'd probably drive me nuts, just knowing that it wasn't there if I needed it.
Monday, July 25, 2005
Monday routine:
Well, it's been almost a week since I got back from San Diego (I'm about five hours shy of when I actually landed in Austin), and I'm just about rested, recuperated and back into some sort of routine. My Monday routine tends to be putting off mowing the lawn for as long as possible, and that's part of what this posting is all about, too. It'll save me a couple minutes where I'm not thinking "I should really go outside and mow." Not sure why I put it off so much, as it's really not that hard a thing to do, especially when I put on my iPod and listen to music or a podcast or an audiobook the whole time, but I just never feel like doing it.
Also on the chores list today is balancing the checkbook, another chore I put off constantly that always takes about 10-15 minutes when I finally sit down to do it. I did get one thing done today, and that was emailing some of the folks that I talked to in San Diego to follow up and say thank you, hello or whatever. My Con coverage at Fourth Rail is now complete, and includes the Con report, my sketchbook and a review of the sketchbooks I picked up.
And now, for no reason other than I want to, a list of all the stuff I got at San Diego that is awaiting review (not counting the two that are getting reviewed tomorrow, Tricked and The King): Invincible Vol. 1 HC, Bumperboy Loses His Marbles, Passion of Da Keef, Small Favors Vols. 1-2, Arsenic Lullaby: Year of the Fetus, Rose and Isabel, Spiral Bound, aeiou, Scalawag, 1000 Steps to World Domination, Smoke & Guns, Northwest Passage 1, Gunpowder Girl & The Outlaw Squaw, The Fly Chronicles, Ballast, Solstice, Brickman Begins, Afterworks, Crowpsey, Raider 2&3, Yets!, The Travels of Gulliver, And Then One Day #s 1&4, Flytrap, Crispy Cornflakes, Slop #5-6, Hector Spector, Mort Grim, Agent 44, Horus, Sketch Crawling, Wannabee #1, Foxymoron #3-6 & X-Mas Special, Western Tales of Terror #5, Elk's Run #3, Rocketo #0, Henagi the Ninja Girl #1, Hieroglyphs, Fragile Prophet #1, Voicebox Summer Preview 2005, The Last Battle, Hero Squared #1, G.I. Spy #1, Hip Flask: Mystery City, Students of the Unusual #1, Fear Agent Preview and Burn #1-2.
This is of course on top of the roughtly 2 foot stack of graphic novels and single issues in my comp pile to review. So I'm gonna be busy reviewing for a while... but I thought y'all might enjoy a preview of some of the stuff that's going to be in the column for the next month or two.
Well, it's been almost a week since I got back from San Diego (I'm about five hours shy of when I actually landed in Austin), and I'm just about rested, recuperated and back into some sort of routine. My Monday routine tends to be putting off mowing the lawn for as long as possible, and that's part of what this posting is all about, too. It'll save me a couple minutes where I'm not thinking "I should really go outside and mow." Not sure why I put it off so much, as it's really not that hard a thing to do, especially when I put on my iPod and listen to music or a podcast or an audiobook the whole time, but I just never feel like doing it.
Also on the chores list today is balancing the checkbook, another chore I put off constantly that always takes about 10-15 minutes when I finally sit down to do it. I did get one thing done today, and that was emailing some of the folks that I talked to in San Diego to follow up and say thank you, hello or whatever. My Con coverage at Fourth Rail is now complete, and includes the Con report, my sketchbook and a review of the sketchbooks I picked up.
And now, for no reason other than I want to, a list of all the stuff I got at San Diego that is awaiting review (not counting the two that are getting reviewed tomorrow, Tricked and The King): Invincible Vol. 1 HC, Bumperboy Loses His Marbles, Passion of Da Keef, Small Favors Vols. 1-2, Arsenic Lullaby: Year of the Fetus, Rose and Isabel, Spiral Bound, aeiou, Scalawag, 1000 Steps to World Domination, Smoke & Guns, Northwest Passage 1, Gunpowder Girl & The Outlaw Squaw, The Fly Chronicles, Ballast, Solstice, Brickman Begins, Afterworks, Crowpsey, Raider 2&3, Yets!, The Travels of Gulliver, And Then One Day #s 1&4, Flytrap, Crispy Cornflakes, Slop #5-6, Hector Spector, Mort Grim, Agent 44, Horus, Sketch Crawling, Wannabee #1, Foxymoron #3-6 & X-Mas Special, Western Tales of Terror #5, Elk's Run #3, Rocketo #0, Henagi the Ninja Girl #1, Hieroglyphs, Fragile Prophet #1, Voicebox Summer Preview 2005, The Last Battle, Hero Squared #1, G.I. Spy #1, Hip Flask: Mystery City, Students of the Unusual #1, Fear Agent Preview and Burn #1-2.
This is of course on top of the roughtly 2 foot stack of graphic novels and single issues in my comp pile to review. So I'm gonna be busy reviewing for a while... but I thought y'all might enjoy a preview of some of the stuff that's going to be in the column for the next month or two.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
TV Catch-Up:
Catching up on my TV from the last couple of weeks (Love ya, Tivo!) during the last couple of days. The Inside continues to be watchable but disappointing given the talent involved, so I honestly won't be too sorry to see it go. Battlestar Galactica has started off strong in season two, with some great suspense stuff involving the cylon raiding party aboard Galactica and some really excellent character stuff. Loved the confrontation of sorts between Apollo and Tigh at the end of episode two.
I've also been catching up on The Daily Show. I love the show, especially when some blowhard (such as Bernard Goldberg) comes on and just gets torn to shreds by Jon's logic and humor. I always leave the show a little frustrated with the abuses of power going on in our country right now, though... I'm continually stunned at how much shit this administration (and it's hatchet man, Karl Rove) gets away with, and even when they get called on it, they just kind of skate by and no one is punished for their transgressions. I imagine this is how the conservatives felt when Clinton just deflected every attack they made on him, except with Clinton it was about blowjobs in the White House, with Bush it's about soldiers being in Iraq and a CIA agent whose cover was blown by her own countrymen.
Catching up on my TV from the last couple of weeks (Love ya, Tivo!) during the last couple of days. The Inside continues to be watchable but disappointing given the talent involved, so I honestly won't be too sorry to see it go. Battlestar Galactica has started off strong in season two, with some great suspense stuff involving the cylon raiding party aboard Galactica and some really excellent character stuff. Loved the confrontation of sorts between Apollo and Tigh at the end of episode two.
I've also been catching up on The Daily Show. I love the show, especially when some blowhard (such as Bernard Goldberg) comes on and just gets torn to shreds by Jon's logic and humor. I always leave the show a little frustrated with the abuses of power going on in our country right now, though... I'm continually stunned at how much shit this administration (and it's hatchet man, Karl Rove) gets away with, and even when they get called on it, they just kind of skate by and no one is punished for their transgressions. I imagine this is how the conservatives felt when Clinton just deflected every attack they made on him, except with Clinton it was about blowjobs in the White House, with Bush it's about soldiers being in Iraq and a CIA agent whose cover was blown by her own countrymen.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Podcasting:
I've been sort of getting into the idea of podcasting lately. I have subscribed to a few podcasts now that iTunes is offering them, including Indie Airplay, the Monday Show with Sara Routh, Augie's Pipeline podcast and the iTunes New Music Tuesdays podcast. I've been looking for some good comics commentary or Austin-central podcasts, but haven't found anything yet... recommendations are welcome.
I'm also toying with the notion of doing a podcast myself. Probably a sort of "week in review" for comics, maybe some kind of back and forth commentary with myself and somebody else (it'd be great to do audio Two in One reviews with Don, but he's kind of in Canada, which makes it difficult, plus we're both tremendously busy with schedules that never coincide), who knows? I've downloaded Audacity on Augie's recommendation, now I just need to look into getting a microphone for the computer and seeing how hard it is to work the software and MP3 encoding.
Chance of this actually happening: Probably about 50%. Chance of it being regular instead of fading away so I can watch more TV, play more videogames, read more comics and play more with my daughter: About 25%.
Advice, recommendations on content and presentation and offers of help greatly appreciated.
I've been sort of getting into the idea of podcasting lately. I have subscribed to a few podcasts now that iTunes is offering them, including Indie Airplay, the Monday Show with Sara Routh, Augie's Pipeline podcast and the iTunes New Music Tuesdays podcast. I've been looking for some good comics commentary or Austin-central podcasts, but haven't found anything yet... recommendations are welcome.
I'm also toying with the notion of doing a podcast myself. Probably a sort of "week in review" for comics, maybe some kind of back and forth commentary with myself and somebody else (it'd be great to do audio Two in One reviews with Don, but he's kind of in Canada, which makes it difficult, plus we're both tremendously busy with schedules that never coincide), who knows? I've downloaded Audacity on Augie's recommendation, now I just need to look into getting a microphone for the computer and seeing how hard it is to work the software and MP3 encoding.
Chance of this actually happening: Probably about 50%. Chance of it being regular instead of fading away so I can watch more TV, play more videogames, read more comics and play more with my daughter: About 25%.
Advice, recommendations on content and presentation and offers of help greatly appreciated.
Friday Night:
Just recently picked up Burnout 3 for the PS/2, now that it's dropped to $20. I had already played the game heavily when it was rented and loved it, so I was glad to finally get the game to have whenever I feel like crashing cars. Since we weren't having our regular game this weekend (the GM is off racing his Mini somewhere), I invited some of the crew over to my place to play the game. Burnout 3, for those who haven't played it, is a racing game where you try to crash other cars, narrowly avoid oncoming traffic and even engage in a "crash mode" where you try to cause the most spectacular crashes for the most monetary damage.
You know the crash physics are good on a game when a group of five guys watch a fictional crash into a wall at high speeds and respond with a visceral "oooohhh! ouch!"
Just recently picked up Burnout 3 for the PS/2, now that it's dropped to $20. I had already played the game heavily when it was rented and loved it, so I was glad to finally get the game to have whenever I feel like crashing cars. Since we weren't having our regular game this weekend (the GM is off racing his Mini somewhere), I invited some of the crew over to my place to play the game. Burnout 3, for those who haven't played it, is a racing game where you try to crash other cars, narrowly avoid oncoming traffic and even engage in a "crash mode" where you try to cause the most spectacular crashes for the most monetary damage.
You know the crash physics are good on a game when a group of five guys watch a fictional crash into a wall at high speeds and respond with a visceral "oooohhh! ouch!"
Friday, July 22, 2005
Heroes Con vs. Wizard World Atlanta:
The news of Wizard's shot across the bow of long-running comic convention Heroes Con is spreading across the web. Newsarama has a pretty good rundown of what's been said so far.
I've been meaning to get out to Heroes Con for some time, especially given that my sister and brother-in-law live down there. Given the number of pros who haven't gone in the past but who are going this year as a show of support, as well as all the good I've heard about the show, it sounds like 2006 is the year to drive down with the wife and kid to visit relatives and hit Heroes Con.
You may be able to hear the crickets on the floor of the Wizard World Atlanta Con, if this keeps going at the rate it's going. Or they'll wise up, apologize and move the Con. I've been to two Wizard Worlds (the first one in Chicago and the one two years ago in Dallas) and have always come away unimpressed in comparison to the original Chicago Comicon, San Diego, even the small press shows like SPX and STAPLE.
The news of Wizard's shot across the bow of long-running comic convention Heroes Con is spreading across the web. Newsarama has a pretty good rundown of what's been said so far.
I've been meaning to get out to Heroes Con for some time, especially given that my sister and brother-in-law live down there. Given the number of pros who haven't gone in the past but who are going this year as a show of support, as well as all the good I've heard about the show, it sounds like 2006 is the year to drive down with the wife and kid to visit relatives and hit Heroes Con.
You may be able to hear the crickets on the floor of the Wizard World Atlanta Con, if this keeps going at the rate it's going. Or they'll wise up, apologize and move the Con. I've been to two Wizard Worlds (the first one in Chicago and the one two years ago in Dallas) and have always come away unimpressed in comparison to the original Chicago Comicon, San Diego, even the small press shows like SPX and STAPLE.
Weekly Comics To Come:
Every week, as part of my retail job, I run down the invoice of what's coming into the store next Wednesday. I also pull out the stuff that looks interesting to me, so I figured why not take that list, make a few brief comments and try to make that the regular Friday update on my new daily blog? Will this continue, or will it be one time only? Time will tell!
ALREADY READ:
Astro City The Dark Age #2 (Very interesting stuff about the Silver Agent)
Capote In Kansas Gn (Fantastic semi-biographical story of novelist Truman Capote, certainly one of the best graphic novels of the year and a must-buy)
Daredevil Vs Punisher #2 (Fairly standard Daredevil/Punisher material, but done with style by David Lapham)
Hulk Destruction #1 (Decent but forgettable beginning of a spotlight on Hulk foe Abomination. Peter David writing is pretty good, if a little hard to follow at times due to time jumps, Jim Muniz art is sort of OK but not much more)
Runaways #6 (Great follow-up to last issue's reveal about Victor Mancha's parentage and good finale to the first arc of the returned series)
Silent Dragon #1 (Beautiful art by Leinil Yu, not quite sold on the story yet but the futuristic Yakuza/military tale does intrigue)
Spider-Man Human Torch Im With Stupid Digest Tp (Amazing and totally overlooked Spidey/Human Torch LS by Dan Slott and Ty Templeton in cheap as hell $8 digest format - If not for Capote in Kansas, this would probably be my pick of the week)
HAVEN'T READ:
Bill & Teds Most Excellent Adventures Vol 2 Tp (First volume was kind of fun, this is the remainder of Evan Dorkin's take on the slacker duo)
Courtney Crumrin Tales #1 (Naifeh explores some of the supporting cast of Courtney, starting with warlock Uncle Aloysius)
Cute Manifesto Tp (A collection of Kochalka comics)
Dead West Vol 1 Gn (Looking forward to reading this undead western by Rick Spears and Rob. G, creators of Filler and Teenagers From Mars)
Godland #1 (Mind-blowing cosmic fun mixing Kirby with the deconstructionist style of Automatic Kafka by Joe Casey and Tom Scioli)
JLA Cyberforce (Really? Cyberforce? Isn't it 2005? And Silvestri, the only possible draw for these characters, isn't even involved)
Losers #26 (More kickass action from Diggle and Jock. Sorry to see it go in 2006, and yet happy about the notion of seeing the wrap-up)
Nightwing Year One Tp (Fun formula superhero by Dixon, Beatty and McDaniel - fits right in with the Batgirl: Year One and Robin: Year One trades by the same writers)
Previews #25.8 (Down the Line should follow next week)
Queen & Country Declassified Vol 3 #2 (First issue was terrific, looking forward to seeing more of this IRA/SAS tale)
Star Wars Republic #77 (After this, two more issues to go in the great Ostrander/Duursema run on Star Wars: Republic)
Tick Days Of Drama #1 (New Tick! It's kind of lost its luster for me, but all the Tick comics, with or without Edlund, that I've read have been enjoyable)
Usagi Yojimbo Vol 19 Fathers And Sons Tp (The finale of the Usagi/Jotaro story, as great as Usagi Yojimbo always is)
Western Tales Of Terror #5 (Contributors this issue include Steve Niles, Scott Mills, Tony Moore, Small Gods creators Jason Rand and Juan Ferraya and Tom Mandrake)
Every week, as part of my retail job, I run down the invoice of what's coming into the store next Wednesday. I also pull out the stuff that looks interesting to me, so I figured why not take that list, make a few brief comments and try to make that the regular Friday update on my new daily blog? Will this continue, or will it be one time only? Time will tell!
ALREADY READ:
Astro City The Dark Age #2 (Very interesting stuff about the Silver Agent)
Capote In Kansas Gn (Fantastic semi-biographical story of novelist Truman Capote, certainly one of the best graphic novels of the year and a must-buy)
Daredevil Vs Punisher #2 (Fairly standard Daredevil/Punisher material, but done with style by David Lapham)
Hulk Destruction #1 (Decent but forgettable beginning of a spotlight on Hulk foe Abomination. Peter David writing is pretty good, if a little hard to follow at times due to time jumps, Jim Muniz art is sort of OK but not much more)
Runaways #6 (Great follow-up to last issue's reveal about Victor Mancha's parentage and good finale to the first arc of the returned series)
Silent Dragon #1 (Beautiful art by Leinil Yu, not quite sold on the story yet but the futuristic Yakuza/military tale does intrigue)
Spider-Man Human Torch Im With Stupid Digest Tp (Amazing and totally overlooked Spidey/Human Torch LS by Dan Slott and Ty Templeton in cheap as hell $8 digest format - If not for Capote in Kansas, this would probably be my pick of the week)
HAVEN'T READ:
Bill & Teds Most Excellent Adventures Vol 2 Tp (First volume was kind of fun, this is the remainder of Evan Dorkin's take on the slacker duo)
Courtney Crumrin Tales #1 (Naifeh explores some of the supporting cast of Courtney, starting with warlock Uncle Aloysius)
Cute Manifesto Tp (A collection of Kochalka comics)
Dead West Vol 1 Gn (Looking forward to reading this undead western by Rick Spears and Rob. G, creators of Filler and Teenagers From Mars)
Godland #1 (Mind-blowing cosmic fun mixing Kirby with the deconstructionist style of Automatic Kafka by Joe Casey and Tom Scioli)
JLA Cyberforce (Really? Cyberforce? Isn't it 2005? And Silvestri, the only possible draw for these characters, isn't even involved)
Losers #26 (More kickass action from Diggle and Jock. Sorry to see it go in 2006, and yet happy about the notion of seeing the wrap-up)
Nightwing Year One Tp (Fun formula superhero by Dixon, Beatty and McDaniel - fits right in with the Batgirl: Year One and Robin: Year One trades by the same writers)
Previews #25.8 (Down the Line should follow next week)
Queen & Country Declassified Vol 3 #2 (First issue was terrific, looking forward to seeing more of this IRA/SAS tale)
Star Wars Republic #77 (After this, two more issues to go in the great Ostrander/Duursema run on Star Wars: Republic)
Tick Days Of Drama #1 (New Tick! It's kind of lost its luster for me, but all the Tick comics, with or without Edlund, that I've read have been enjoyable)
Usagi Yojimbo Vol 19 Fathers And Sons Tp (The finale of the Usagi/Jotaro story, as great as Usagi Yojimbo always is)
Western Tales Of Terror #5 (Contributors this issue include Steve Niles, Scott Mills, Tony Moore, Small Gods creators Jason Rand and Juan Ferraya and Tom Mandrake)
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Daily Updates?
I've resolved to try and post something daily on this blog. As I am remarkably uninteresting, no doubt many of these posts will be utter nonsense. Take this one, for example.
Anyway, new blogs to add to my daily reading list (that should have been on there long ago): The Comics Reporter and Bags and Boards. These came up as I reached day two (Thursday) of my Con report, which will no doubt frighten and disgust in its length and rambling nature when I finally get it finished and posted (I'm betting on Monday) at Fourth Rail.
Still haven't really turned on the TV since getting back from San Diego, aside from watching the two episodes of Family Guy I had saved (I needed a laugh). The first episode of Battlestar Galactica second season, the latest Rescue Me and about a week and a half of The Daily Show all call to me. As do my new copy of Burnout 3 for PS/2 (purchased right before I left) and Scrubs: Season One DVD (already watched from Netflix, but would like to rewatch).
Also need to read some of the Marvel First Look stuff from next week: Runaways, Daredevil/Punisher, a couple others. Already read the DC stuff I wanted to, which meant reading Wildstorm's Silent Dragon (interesting start, though not the slam bang opener I had hoped for) and... uh... something else I've already forgotten.
See, I told you... daily = rambling. Hopefully I'll improve as I get into the groove. Or, more likely, give up and go back to semi-monthly updates.
I've resolved to try and post something daily on this blog. As I am remarkably uninteresting, no doubt many of these posts will be utter nonsense. Take this one, for example.
Anyway, new blogs to add to my daily reading list (that should have been on there long ago): The Comics Reporter and Bags and Boards. These came up as I reached day two (Thursday) of my Con report, which will no doubt frighten and disgust in its length and rambling nature when I finally get it finished and posted (I'm betting on Monday) at Fourth Rail.
Still haven't really turned on the TV since getting back from San Diego, aside from watching the two episodes of Family Guy I had saved (I needed a laugh). The first episode of Battlestar Galactica second season, the latest Rescue Me and about a week and a half of The Daily Show all call to me. As do my new copy of Burnout 3 for PS/2 (purchased right before I left) and Scrubs: Season One DVD (already watched from Netflix, but would like to rewatch).
Also need to read some of the Marvel First Look stuff from next week: Runaways, Daredevil/Punisher, a couple others. Already read the DC stuff I wanted to, which meant reading Wildstorm's Silent Dragon (interesting start, though not the slam bang opener I had hoped for) and... uh... something else I've already forgotten.
See, I told you... daily = rambling. Hopefully I'll improve as I get into the groove. Or, more likely, give up and go back to semi-monthly updates.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Read So Far:
I've got an enormous pile of graphic novels and comics to read coming off San Diego, and it's going to take me a while to get to reviewing them all.
So far, however, I have read: Gunpowder Girl & Outlaw Squaw, And Then One Day #1 & #4, Small Favors Vols. 1-2, Bumperboy Loses His Marbles, Arsenic Lullaby: Year of the Fetus, The Passion of Da Keef, Invincible HC, aeiou, Scalawag, Tricked, The King, Smoke & Guns, 1000 Steps to World Domination and Spiral Bound. Reviews of all of these should hit relatively soon (next couple weeks, hopefully) but the quick hit favorites are the Invincible HC (packed with extras, so damn cool!), Tricked (worth the wait), The King (better than Three Fingers, which I loved), Smoke & Guns (insane fun) and Spiral Bound (all-ages greatness).
*sigh* I was this close to being caught up on all my comps before San Diego, now I've got a huge backlog again. Ah, well, it's all stuff I'm dying to read and review! :)
I've got an enormous pile of graphic novels and comics to read coming off San Diego, and it's going to take me a while to get to reviewing them all.
So far, however, I have read: Gunpowder Girl & Outlaw Squaw, And Then One Day #1 & #4, Small Favors Vols. 1-2, Bumperboy Loses His Marbles, Arsenic Lullaby: Year of the Fetus, The Passion of Da Keef, Invincible HC, aeiou, Scalawag, Tricked, The King, Smoke & Guns, 1000 Steps to World Domination and Spiral Bound. Reviews of all of these should hit relatively soon (next couple weeks, hopefully) but the quick hit favorites are the Invincible HC (packed with extras, so damn cool!), Tricked (worth the wait), The King (better than Three Fingers, which I loved), Smoke & Guns (insane fun) and Spiral Bound (all-ages greatness).
*sigh* I was this close to being caught up on all my comps before San Diego, now I've got a huge backlog again. Ah, well, it's all stuff I'm dying to read and review! :)
Monday, July 18, 2005
I Have Returned:
Back (finally) from the big San Diego trip, a day later than planned thanks to delays and other related BS from Southwest Airlines. This is the first time I've had major flight trouble in a while, and definitely the *last* time I'll fly through Las Vegas on Southwest if I can avoid it. While our customer service in San Diego was great, friendly and accomodating in what were unbearably difficult circumstances, we got nothing but frustration and anger from dealing with the ranking manager on duty Lance Thibodeau in Southwest's Las Vegas branch. He was of course mildly more helpful than the woman who first greeted us with a surly "That means nothing to me" when we told her we were the six misconnects from Austin and got more surly and unhelpful from there, but he was basically a sarcastic and useless tool and we had to badger him to get us the hotel rooms that had been promised us in San Diego if we wound up stranded in Vegas.
Aargh. This will of course all show up in the con report on Fourth Rail in a few days. Oddly, I just finished perusing Newsarama, which has all the news that I missed while on the floor of the Con, and realized that most of it holds little to no interest for me. It's all about DC/Marvel plans, and while there are a few intriguing bits, the big hypefest books that are going to sell don't really hold much attraction to me. Does this mean I've lost interest in comics? Well, given the stacks of graphic novels and sketchbooks I picked up in San Diego, and the fact that I'll probably go read a few more when I finish typing this, not really... it just means that I'm getting tired of bullshit hype and would rather have creators doing their thing instead. San Diego was a nice reminder that there are still a ton of people out there beyond DC/Marvel, and the reports of good sales from most everyone I talked to a welcome reminder that there's interest in this kind of thing from fans as well.
Back (finally) from the big San Diego trip, a day later than planned thanks to delays and other related BS from Southwest Airlines. This is the first time I've had major flight trouble in a while, and definitely the *last* time I'll fly through Las Vegas on Southwest if I can avoid it. While our customer service in San Diego was great, friendly and accomodating in what were unbearably difficult circumstances, we got nothing but frustration and anger from dealing with the ranking manager on duty Lance Thibodeau in Southwest's Las Vegas branch. He was of course mildly more helpful than the woman who first greeted us with a surly "That means nothing to me" when we told her we were the six misconnects from Austin and got more surly and unhelpful from there, but he was basically a sarcastic and useless tool and we had to badger him to get us the hotel rooms that had been promised us in San Diego if we wound up stranded in Vegas.
Aargh. This will of course all show up in the con report on Fourth Rail in a few days. Oddly, I just finished perusing Newsarama, which has all the news that I missed while on the floor of the Con, and realized that most of it holds little to no interest for me. It's all about DC/Marvel plans, and while there are a few intriguing bits, the big hypefest books that are going to sell don't really hold much attraction to me. Does this mean I've lost interest in comics? Well, given the stacks of graphic novels and sketchbooks I picked up in San Diego, and the fact that I'll probably go read a few more when I finish typing this, not really... it just means that I'm getting tired of bullshit hype and would rather have creators doing their thing instead. San Diego was a nice reminder that there are still a ton of people out there beyond DC/Marvel, and the reports of good sales from most everyone I talked to a welcome reminder that there's interest in this kind of thing from fans as well.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Fantastic Four:
Just as I seem to be out of step with the majority of comics buyers relating to the two event stories going on at DC and Marvel, I also seem to be somewhat out of step with the consensus on comic book movies so far.
Because honestly, I liked Fantastic Four. Certainly better than Batman Begins. Why? Well, mostly it comes down to fun. Batman Begins is dour and lifeless, Fantastic Four feels like the sort of fun I'd rather have in my comics. It is true, in a lot of ways, to the spirit of the team that was instilled by Lee and Kirby in their legendary run.
I'm not saying it was a great movie. There are any number of logical inconsistencies that add up, and if you let yourself keep asking questions about the variations in science, the bizarre flip-flops in characterization that a few characters suffer (poor Doom worst of all) or why on Earth someone thought it was a good idea to use that music at that time, you'll probably hate it.
However, if you can go with a flow and ignore some of the Hollywoodisms (and these days, to enjoy an event movie you pretty much have to ignore some Hollywoodism), Fantastic Four is a pretty fun, even action-packed take on these characters that does justice to at least 3 1/2 of them. Doom gets short shrift in the script, but it's nothing that couldn't be fixed with a sequel that has him taking over Latveria and becoming the Doom we'd all prefer, and I like to think that Julian McMahon could handle that role and that the missteps as Doom in this movie are due more to script failures. Jessica Alba is, as with Sin City, a bit miscast, as she doesn't quite make me buy into her as smart scientist Sue Storm (btw, I like changing Sue from '50s housewife to Reed's scientific equal, whether it's here or in Ultimate FF), but in general she's still pretty good. Michael Chiklis, as expected, is great as The Thing, and the effects actually work to make us believe him as the Thing. A little old school, maybe, could have used a bit more CGI touch-up maybe, but certainly not as bad as early shots would have led you to believe. Ioan Gruffudd is given the difficult job of bringing major-league stiff Reed Richards to life, and he pulls it off admirably.
Of course, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm steals the movie. He's the guy actually enjoying himself when the powers comes along, he gets some of the best special effects and some of the most effective humor and action sequences. I would have guessed before seeing the movie that Chiklis was the best bit of casting, but Evans is the real find, he just embodies everything that Johnny Storm should be. Oh, and I like the change that he is the team's pilot, not just Sue's younger brother who tagged along on the mission. I wasn't down with all the changes made in this story from the original (Doom as business tycoon feels like lazy writing, for example) but I did like quite a few of them.
Maybe it's lowered expectations, maybe I'm willing to forgive a lot in the name of fun... but unlike Batman Begins, I see myself buying Fantastic Four when it comes out on DVD. And although Batman will get a sequel and FF might not, truthfully I'd rather see that reversed, because I'd love to see these actors meet again, this time with Doom at the head of Latveria, as he should be, and with all the origin stuff pushed out of the way to make way for a stronger story.
Just as I seem to be out of step with the majority of comics buyers relating to the two event stories going on at DC and Marvel, I also seem to be somewhat out of step with the consensus on comic book movies so far.
Because honestly, I liked Fantastic Four. Certainly better than Batman Begins. Why? Well, mostly it comes down to fun. Batman Begins is dour and lifeless, Fantastic Four feels like the sort of fun I'd rather have in my comics. It is true, in a lot of ways, to the spirit of the team that was instilled by Lee and Kirby in their legendary run.
I'm not saying it was a great movie. There are any number of logical inconsistencies that add up, and if you let yourself keep asking questions about the variations in science, the bizarre flip-flops in characterization that a few characters suffer (poor Doom worst of all) or why on Earth someone thought it was a good idea to use that music at that time, you'll probably hate it.
However, if you can go with a flow and ignore some of the Hollywoodisms (and these days, to enjoy an event movie you pretty much have to ignore some Hollywoodism), Fantastic Four is a pretty fun, even action-packed take on these characters that does justice to at least 3 1/2 of them. Doom gets short shrift in the script, but it's nothing that couldn't be fixed with a sequel that has him taking over Latveria and becoming the Doom we'd all prefer, and I like to think that Julian McMahon could handle that role and that the missteps as Doom in this movie are due more to script failures. Jessica Alba is, as with Sin City, a bit miscast, as she doesn't quite make me buy into her as smart scientist Sue Storm (btw, I like changing Sue from '50s housewife to Reed's scientific equal, whether it's here or in Ultimate FF), but in general she's still pretty good. Michael Chiklis, as expected, is great as The Thing, and the effects actually work to make us believe him as the Thing. A little old school, maybe, could have used a bit more CGI touch-up maybe, but certainly not as bad as early shots would have led you to believe. Ioan Gruffudd is given the difficult job of bringing major-league stiff Reed Richards to life, and he pulls it off admirably.
Of course, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm steals the movie. He's the guy actually enjoying himself when the powers comes along, he gets some of the best special effects and some of the most effective humor and action sequences. I would have guessed before seeing the movie that Chiklis was the best bit of casting, but Evans is the real find, he just embodies everything that Johnny Storm should be. Oh, and I like the change that he is the team's pilot, not just Sue's younger brother who tagged along on the mission. I wasn't down with all the changes made in this story from the original (Doom as business tycoon feels like lazy writing, for example) but I did like quite a few of them.
Maybe it's lowered expectations, maybe I'm willing to forgive a lot in the name of fun... but unlike Batman Begins, I see myself buying Fantastic Four when it comes out on DVD. And although Batman will get a sequel and FF might not, truthfully I'd rather see that reversed, because I'd love to see these actors meet again, this time with Doom at the head of Latveria, as he should be, and with all the origin stuff pushed out of the way to make way for a stronger story.
Monday, July 04, 2005
A Good Weekend:
I don't technically get holidays at my job, but because Sundays and Mondays are my regular days off, and because many of my friends were enjoying a three-day weekend, I got to enjoy this holiday weekend quite a bit anyway.
Friday night was a DVD release party for the STAPLE DVD at Austin Books. I did the interviews with Scott Kurtz and Michael Lark on the DVD, and I thought Gary Bartos and Doug Benning did a terrific job putting the DVD together. If you've got any interest in seeing a series of interviews about a first-time (very successful) small press show, this DVD is well worth a look. For me, the coolest thing was hanging out at Austin Books with my friends Chris Nicholas, Dave Lamplugh and Nate Southard as well as out-of-towner Toby Craig and DVD director/producer etc. Gary Bartos. Much good conversation and a fun, cheap late dinner at Taco Cabana made for an entertaining evening.
On Saturday, before going in to work, I went to the Red River Cafe with Gary, Chris, Dave and Toby and had brunch. Good food, more good (if weird) conversation, lots of fun. Then on Saturday night I went with my buddy Dave Farabee to see War of the Worlds. Dave was unimpressed, but I was pretty happy with the movie, and the suspense pretty much had me hooked in throughout. The very end is a little bit too pat and sentimental, but most of the movie I liked.
My wife and daughter had been out of town on Friday and Saturday visiting relatives in Dallas, so I was glad when they returned on Sunday, which also happened to be my wife's birthday. After spending the day playing with Katy, Suzanne and I took her over to my parents' house to spend the night so we could have an evening out. We went to The Melting Pot, an *awesome* fondue restaurant. It's pricey, special occasion fare all the way, but it was just amazing food. Melted cheese and bread, apples and veggies, a "Pacific Rim" sampler of meat (which included duck, teriyaki steak, pork, chicken, shrimp and potstickers) that we cooked at the table and an amazing dessert course made up of chocolate, marshmallow fluff and graham crackers made for a great meal. Truthfully, I ate a bit too much, and regretted eating that last bit of cheesecake (dipped in the chocolate), but I couldn't resist.
We then went to see Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which I also liked quite a bit. Pitt and Jolie had great chemistry, Liman's direction is as sure and sharp as his work on Bourne Identity and Go and the story might have been easy to read, but the action was solid and the general writing pretty decent.
Tomorrow, we'll go over to my folks' house for burgers and brats on the grill and Katy's first experience with fireworks (Black cats and sparklers). A good weekend. And now it's almost 3:00 AM and I should really go to bed.
I don't technically get holidays at my job, but because Sundays and Mondays are my regular days off, and because many of my friends were enjoying a three-day weekend, I got to enjoy this holiday weekend quite a bit anyway.
Friday night was a DVD release party for the STAPLE DVD at Austin Books. I did the interviews with Scott Kurtz and Michael Lark on the DVD, and I thought Gary Bartos and Doug Benning did a terrific job putting the DVD together. If you've got any interest in seeing a series of interviews about a first-time (very successful) small press show, this DVD is well worth a look. For me, the coolest thing was hanging out at Austin Books with my friends Chris Nicholas, Dave Lamplugh and Nate Southard as well as out-of-towner Toby Craig and DVD director/producer etc. Gary Bartos. Much good conversation and a fun, cheap late dinner at Taco Cabana made for an entertaining evening.
On Saturday, before going in to work, I went to the Red River Cafe with Gary, Chris, Dave and Toby and had brunch. Good food, more good (if weird) conversation, lots of fun. Then on Saturday night I went with my buddy Dave Farabee to see War of the Worlds. Dave was unimpressed, but I was pretty happy with the movie, and the suspense pretty much had me hooked in throughout. The very end is a little bit too pat and sentimental, but most of the movie I liked.
My wife and daughter had been out of town on Friday and Saturday visiting relatives in Dallas, so I was glad when they returned on Sunday, which also happened to be my wife's birthday. After spending the day playing with Katy, Suzanne and I took her over to my parents' house to spend the night so we could have an evening out. We went to The Melting Pot, an *awesome* fondue restaurant. It's pricey, special occasion fare all the way, but it was just amazing food. Melted cheese and bread, apples and veggies, a "Pacific Rim" sampler of meat (which included duck, teriyaki steak, pork, chicken, shrimp and potstickers) that we cooked at the table and an amazing dessert course made up of chocolate, marshmallow fluff and graham crackers made for a great meal. Truthfully, I ate a bit too much, and regretted eating that last bit of cheesecake (dipped in the chocolate), but I couldn't resist.
We then went to see Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which I also liked quite a bit. Pitt and Jolie had great chemistry, Liman's direction is as sure and sharp as his work on Bourne Identity and Go and the story might have been easy to read, but the action was solid and the general writing pretty decent.
Tomorrow, we'll go over to my folks' house for burgers and brats on the grill and Katy's first experience with fireworks (Black cats and sparklers). A good weekend. And now it's almost 3:00 AM and I should really go to bed.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Batman Begins:
I'm already sick of talking about it. Working in a comic shop, everyone comes in and immediately asks "Seen Batman yet?" Apply to any other comic or geek-related movie, and you might get why I'm just tired of talking about all the geek-tainment much, much faster than most. Especially since really, I have to be a buzzkill on this one. Batman Begins is a decent flick, but it is not the great definitive Batman movie everyone is making it out to be. It seems like as comic fans, we've all become so desperate for a good comic book movie that any halfway decent comic book movie gets called great.
Don't want to spoil it for anyone, so all I'll say specifically is that the first half, the Bruce Wayne half, is pretty good, and I bought into most of it. I thought Bale did a great job playing Bruce Wayne in general. But his Batman is so over-the-top angry that I felt like Bale didn't "get" superhero acting and was almost verging on camp. Liam Neeson and Michael Caine were both terrific, and in fact their characters' relationships with Bruce were so much more interesting and believable than the one he had with Katie Holmes (who I like, but who really didn't belong in this movie... others have suggested Talia as a more obvious love influence, and a likely stronger female presence, and I totally agree). Gary Oldman was good, but his Gordon was toned down to a borderline comedic presence at times, and I think Oldman could have pulled off the badass Gordon from Year One if only the script had allowed it. Then there's the second half of the movie, the Batman vs. supervillain half, which seemed like a completely different film. The plot doesn't really make much sense, and it's like the whole thing suddenly went from ultra-real to over-the-top sci-fi, and it didn't work.
Overall, my sense was: Good casting (with a couple exceptions), good direction, weak script. Good movie, but I'm unlikely to see it again. Bale provided the best Bruce Wayne we've yet seen in films, but I thought Keaton was a better Batman. And nothing live action has even come close to touching the animated series, which got it all right in all the right ways.
Favorite superhero movies for me remain The Rocketeer and The Incredibles, with X-Men 2 trailing just behind, and X-Men and Spider-Man quite a distance beyond that.
Oh, and I'm in almost total agreement with Scott Kurtz (of PVP) and Peter Travers (of Rolling Stone, who also nailed Episode III right on in his review).
I'm already sick of talking about it. Working in a comic shop, everyone comes in and immediately asks "Seen Batman yet?" Apply to any other comic or geek-related movie, and you might get why I'm just tired of talking about all the geek-tainment much, much faster than most. Especially since really, I have to be a buzzkill on this one. Batman Begins is a decent flick, but it is not the great definitive Batman movie everyone is making it out to be. It seems like as comic fans, we've all become so desperate for a good comic book movie that any halfway decent comic book movie gets called great.
Don't want to spoil it for anyone, so all I'll say specifically is that the first half, the Bruce Wayne half, is pretty good, and I bought into most of it. I thought Bale did a great job playing Bruce Wayne in general. But his Batman is so over-the-top angry that I felt like Bale didn't "get" superhero acting and was almost verging on camp. Liam Neeson and Michael Caine were both terrific, and in fact their characters' relationships with Bruce were so much more interesting and believable than the one he had with Katie Holmes (who I like, but who really didn't belong in this movie... others have suggested Talia as a more obvious love influence, and a likely stronger female presence, and I totally agree). Gary Oldman was good, but his Gordon was toned down to a borderline comedic presence at times, and I think Oldman could have pulled off the badass Gordon from Year One if only the script had allowed it. Then there's the second half of the movie, the Batman vs. supervillain half, which seemed like a completely different film. The plot doesn't really make much sense, and it's like the whole thing suddenly went from ultra-real to over-the-top sci-fi, and it didn't work.
Overall, my sense was: Good casting (with a couple exceptions), good direction, weak script. Good movie, but I'm unlikely to see it again. Bale provided the best Bruce Wayne we've yet seen in films, but I thought Keaton was a better Batman. And nothing live action has even come close to touching the animated series, which got it all right in all the right ways.
Favorite superhero movies for me remain The Rocketeer and The Incredibles, with X-Men 2 trailing just behind, and X-Men and Spider-Man quite a distance beyond that.
Oh, and I'm in almost total agreement with Scott Kurtz (of PVP) and Peter Travers (of Rolling Stone, who also nailed Episode III right on in his review).
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
iPoooooodddddd!!!!:
Read that in a sort of Star Trek II "Khaaaaannnn!" inflection. See, I sent my iPod Photo in for repair due to battery problems a little while back and got back (in rapid time) a new iPod Photo which seemed to be working perfectly. No sign of the previous problem. The previous problem being that for some reason, even when fully charged, when I disconnected the thing from the power adapter at work and brought it to my car, it would sometimes just conk out and refuse to reset or act like it was alive. After two days or so of dormancy (when it had drained most of its remaining power), it would respond to a reset and allow me to power it up, working a few days and then doing the same damn thing.
It just did it again today. And I'm remarkably frustrated with it. I can't decide if its superstition that the work connection has something to do with it or if the iPod mini cord is somehow different than the iPod Photo cord (despite looking identical) and I've now screwed up two iPods. Hoping that when the damn thing comes back on, I can do a software reboot and fix it. If anybody out there reading this has had the same problem or has any tech advice, I'm all ears.
Read that in a sort of Star Trek II "Khaaaaannnn!" inflection. See, I sent my iPod Photo in for repair due to battery problems a little while back and got back (in rapid time) a new iPod Photo which seemed to be working perfectly. No sign of the previous problem. The previous problem being that for some reason, even when fully charged, when I disconnected the thing from the power adapter at work and brought it to my car, it would sometimes just conk out and refuse to reset or act like it was alive. After two days or so of dormancy (when it had drained most of its remaining power), it would respond to a reset and allow me to power it up, working a few days and then doing the same damn thing.
It just did it again today. And I'm remarkably frustrated with it. I can't decide if its superstition that the work connection has something to do with it or if the iPod mini cord is somehow different than the iPod Photo cord (despite looking identical) and I've now screwed up two iPods. Hoping that when the damn thing comes back on, I can do a software reboot and fix it. If anybody out there reading this has had the same problem or has any tech advice, I'm all ears.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Next Fall Season:
I love this time of year. See, I'm one of those weird folks who loves reading the Previews of what's coming up in comics, watches the movie trailers on the Apple site about once every couple of weeks and watches pilot season with interest. I want to know what's next, because even if everything is disappointing me now (as is often the case with comics and movies at the moment, although happily not TV), something great might be just around the corner.
TV networks had their "upfronts" this week, and given that this new season gave me two new shows I loved (Lost, Veronica Mars) and some shows that impressed me again or still (24, Arrested Development, The Shield), I'm excited to see what happens next. There was only one big schedule conflict (although it is a doozy), something I always worry about when networks are shuffling their schedules, and there are a few promising shows. Also, Veronica Mars, which is probably my third-favorite show (behind Arrested Development and The Shield), wasn't even on my radar until early in the season last year, so there could still be some surprises waiting. Here's what I'm looking at for next season (not counting midseason):
Sunday 8 PM
Family Guy (FOX) - If Fox can stop screwing with the timeslot, and thus my Tivo, so that I wind up getting the lackluster American Dad instead of this show. It's been on three times, I've seen it once.
Monday 7 PM
Fathom (CBS) - Intriguing alien invasion show (third of its kind on three networks), aliens are some kind of "new sea life," but the cast and producing crew don't stand out, and there's no way *anything* could compete with:
Arrested Development (FOX) - I'm so thrilled that this show got a third season renewal, and will be watching every week.
Monday 7:30 PM
Kitchen Confidential (FOX) - I like the cast on this one: Bradley Cooper from Alias, Nicholas Brendon from Buffy, etc. I also like the premise, about "bad boy" chef Anthony Bourdain, and I want to watch the show if only because it's lead-in is AD and I'll see what FOX is pairing with that. But if it's not good immediately, I'll probably switch over to:
How I Met Your Mother (CBS) - Premise sounds dull, typical relationship type stuff but with the twist of being narrated from the future by the successful couple. The cast, however, includes Alyson Hanigan and Neil Patrick Harris. I'd rather see both of these actors on drama, because I think they're stronger there, but I'll at least check this out.
Monday 8 PM
Emily's Reasons Why Not (ABC) - Heather Graham was really good in her Scrubs guest shot, so maybe this comedy about her as an advice columnist will be funny. But I'll probably watch:
Prison Break (FOX) - A season-long show about two brothers planning a prison break? Has 24 in its DNA, and sounds like good, pulp "guy soap opera" fun in that vein.
Tuesday 7 PM
Bones (FOX) - Premise sounds too CSI, and a little boring, but it's got David Boreanaz from Angel and there's nothing on opposite that I want to watch, so I'll at least catch a few early episodes.
Tuesday 8 PM
My Name is Earl (NBC) - Jason Lee as a low-rent crook who wins the lottery and then tries to right all the wrongs of his old life? Good casting (also has Jaime Pressly and Ethan Suplee), good premise, no timeslot competition, I'll be watching. But two of those three apply to Joey, and I gave that up, so it'll have to be good to earn its place on the Tivo.
Tuesday 8:30 PM
The Office (NBC) - I like this when I watch it, so I might watch more. Or I might not.
Wednesday 8 PM
Lost (ABC) - One of my favorite shows of this season. You can bet I'll be watching, although it might be on a friend's DVR because:
Veronica Mars (UPN) - MOTHER FUCKERS! They renewed the show and put it up against ABC's ratings juggernaut? Don't get me wrong, the only thing that could get me to choose against VM is Arrested Development, but I'm not most of America, and this could easily kill the show if they're hoping to see ratings improvement. Jesus, what are they thinking?
E-Ring (NBC) - Bruckheimer-produced drama about the Pentagon. Mildly interested, has Dennis Hopper (!), but up against these two other shows? I'll never see it.
Wednesday 9 PM
Invasion (ABC) - Another "alien invasion" show, this one probably has the best chance of success, since it's lead-in is Lost. Cast isn't instantly recognizable by name (although I know some of the faces), but the general approach sounds interesting, and again, no timeslot competition for me.
Thursday 7 PM
Alias (ABC) - Almost lost me early this season, still nowhere near as good as it was in seasons 1 and 2, but has regained my interest enough that I'll watch if nothing better is competing. And nothing is.
Thursday 8 PM
The Night Stalker (ABC) - No love for the original, my original interest in X-Files has turned to hatred, and yet... this sounds like Kolchak crossed with the Fugitive, and a good underlying central mystery can help a show. Curious to check it out, at least.
Friday 8 PM
Threshold (CBS) - The third alien invasion series, hampered severely by the involvement of Star Trek's Brannon Braga and Blade: Trinity's David Goyer, but boosted given that it features Carla Gugino, one of my favorite actresses, as well as some other notably good cast. I'll watch, although not if it's on opposite Battlestar Galactica.
And that's it. Mind you, some of my favorite shows aren't in this upfront, including all the intriguing looking midseason stuff like The Unit (Shawn Ryan and David Mamet) or The Inside (coming in June, really looking forward to this one) or the stuff on cable networks like Sci-Fi (Battlestar Galactica) and FX (The Shield), but that's what I'll probably check out come the Fall season.
I love this time of year. See, I'm one of those weird folks who loves reading the Previews of what's coming up in comics, watches the movie trailers on the Apple site about once every couple of weeks and watches pilot season with interest. I want to know what's next, because even if everything is disappointing me now (as is often the case with comics and movies at the moment, although happily not TV), something great might be just around the corner.
TV networks had their "upfronts" this week, and given that this new season gave me two new shows I loved (Lost, Veronica Mars) and some shows that impressed me again or still (24, Arrested Development, The Shield), I'm excited to see what happens next. There was only one big schedule conflict (although it is a doozy), something I always worry about when networks are shuffling their schedules, and there are a few promising shows. Also, Veronica Mars, which is probably my third-favorite show (behind Arrested Development and The Shield), wasn't even on my radar until early in the season last year, so there could still be some surprises waiting. Here's what I'm looking at for next season (not counting midseason):
Sunday 8 PM
Family Guy (FOX) - If Fox can stop screwing with the timeslot, and thus my Tivo, so that I wind up getting the lackluster American Dad instead of this show. It's been on three times, I've seen it once.
Monday 7 PM
Fathom (CBS) - Intriguing alien invasion show (third of its kind on three networks), aliens are some kind of "new sea life," but the cast and producing crew don't stand out, and there's no way *anything* could compete with:
Arrested Development (FOX) - I'm so thrilled that this show got a third season renewal, and will be watching every week.
Monday 7:30 PM
Kitchen Confidential (FOX) - I like the cast on this one: Bradley Cooper from Alias, Nicholas Brendon from Buffy, etc. I also like the premise, about "bad boy" chef Anthony Bourdain, and I want to watch the show if only because it's lead-in is AD and I'll see what FOX is pairing with that. But if it's not good immediately, I'll probably switch over to:
How I Met Your Mother (CBS) - Premise sounds dull, typical relationship type stuff but with the twist of being narrated from the future by the successful couple. The cast, however, includes Alyson Hanigan and Neil Patrick Harris. I'd rather see both of these actors on drama, because I think they're stronger there, but I'll at least check this out.
Monday 8 PM
Emily's Reasons Why Not (ABC) - Heather Graham was really good in her Scrubs guest shot, so maybe this comedy about her as an advice columnist will be funny. But I'll probably watch:
Prison Break (FOX) - A season-long show about two brothers planning a prison break? Has 24 in its DNA, and sounds like good, pulp "guy soap opera" fun in that vein.
Tuesday 7 PM
Bones (FOX) - Premise sounds too CSI, and a little boring, but it's got David Boreanaz from Angel and there's nothing on opposite that I want to watch, so I'll at least catch a few early episodes.
Tuesday 8 PM
My Name is Earl (NBC) - Jason Lee as a low-rent crook who wins the lottery and then tries to right all the wrongs of his old life? Good casting (also has Jaime Pressly and Ethan Suplee), good premise, no timeslot competition, I'll be watching. But two of those three apply to Joey, and I gave that up, so it'll have to be good to earn its place on the Tivo.
Tuesday 8:30 PM
The Office (NBC) - I like this when I watch it, so I might watch more. Or I might not.
Wednesday 8 PM
Lost (ABC) - One of my favorite shows of this season. You can bet I'll be watching, although it might be on a friend's DVR because:
Veronica Mars (UPN) - MOTHER FUCKERS! They renewed the show and put it up against ABC's ratings juggernaut? Don't get me wrong, the only thing that could get me to choose against VM is Arrested Development, but I'm not most of America, and this could easily kill the show if they're hoping to see ratings improvement. Jesus, what are they thinking?
E-Ring (NBC) - Bruckheimer-produced drama about the Pentagon. Mildly interested, has Dennis Hopper (!), but up against these two other shows? I'll never see it.
Wednesday 9 PM
Invasion (ABC) - Another "alien invasion" show, this one probably has the best chance of success, since it's lead-in is Lost. Cast isn't instantly recognizable by name (although I know some of the faces), but the general approach sounds interesting, and again, no timeslot competition for me.
Thursday 7 PM
Alias (ABC) - Almost lost me early this season, still nowhere near as good as it was in seasons 1 and 2, but has regained my interest enough that I'll watch if nothing better is competing. And nothing is.
Thursday 8 PM
The Night Stalker (ABC) - No love for the original, my original interest in X-Files has turned to hatred, and yet... this sounds like Kolchak crossed with the Fugitive, and a good underlying central mystery can help a show. Curious to check it out, at least.
Friday 8 PM
Threshold (CBS) - The third alien invasion series, hampered severely by the involvement of Star Trek's Brannon Braga and Blade: Trinity's David Goyer, but boosted given that it features Carla Gugino, one of my favorite actresses, as well as some other notably good cast. I'll watch, although not if it's on opposite Battlestar Galactica.
And that's it. Mind you, some of my favorite shows aren't in this upfront, including all the intriguing looking midseason stuff like The Unit (Shawn Ryan and David Mamet) or The Inside (coming in June, really looking forward to this one) or the stuff on cable networks like Sci-Fi (Battlestar Galactica) and FX (The Shield), but that's what I'll probably check out come the Fall season.
Star Wars: Episode III:
I tried like hell not to get my expectations up above the "this is gonna suck" level that I had after Attack of the Clones, but I apparently didn't manage it, because I was still really disappointed in this movie. A few neat moments, but most of the emotional resonance comes from John Williams's score and the nostalgic ties it has to the actual good Star Wars movies, and all of Lucas's many directing and writing foibles are on display in this flick. It is the best of the prequels, but that still ranks it amongst some of the worst crap I've seen in a theatre.
Seriously, this thing is getting good reviews from the fanboy quarter on Ain't It Cool all the way to the critics in the mainstream press, and I'm left wondering what movie they saw that I didn't. I wanted it to be good, wanted the hype to be true, but man... it isn't. Episode III wasn't as boring as Episode II, but it's still miles away from good.
I tried like hell not to get my expectations up above the "this is gonna suck" level that I had after Attack of the Clones, but I apparently didn't manage it, because I was still really disappointed in this movie. A few neat moments, but most of the emotional resonance comes from John Williams's score and the nostalgic ties it has to the actual good Star Wars movies, and all of Lucas's many directing and writing foibles are on display in this flick. It is the best of the prequels, but that still ranks it amongst some of the worst crap I've seen in a theatre.
Seriously, this thing is getting good reviews from the fanboy quarter on Ain't It Cool all the way to the critics in the mainstream press, and I'm left wondering what movie they saw that I didn't. I wanted it to be good, wanted the hype to be true, but man... it isn't. Episode III wasn't as boring as Episode II, but it's still miles away from good.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Life and Times of Juniper Lee:
And this is a reminder to set my Tivo for Judd Winick's new show on Cartoon Network, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, in May. Yes, I'm using my blog as a reminder system now. I can't help it, my memory is swiss cheese, and only getting worse as I age. :)
And this is a reminder to set my Tivo for Judd Winick's new show on Cartoon Network, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, in May. Yes, I'm using my blog as a reminder system now. I can't help it, my memory is swiss cheese, and only getting worse as I age. :)
Mark Ricketts' Webcomic:
This is just a link to remind myself (and anyone else who might be reading this and like good comics) to check out Mark Ricketts and Jay Washer on BEATITUDE.
This is just a link to remind myself (and anyone else who might be reading this and like good comics) to check out Mark Ricketts and Jay Washer on BEATITUDE.
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