Categories: Top ::

Comics: Batman: The Long Halloween
Mon, 20 Mar 2006

Another quick writeup from my phone..

While putting together some final features for a potential mini-release of Shadow Plan (perhaps I'll go for a 4.4 intermediate release rather than heading straight to 4.5 as originally planned) I've been valiently trying to keep up with the support email inbox. At the same time in the wee hours before falling off to sandland, I've been catching up on the goings-about in Gotham City. You see here, I picked this very fine book up for myself around Christmas but never got around to it.

This isn't the latest Batman or Dark Knight type comic as it was originally published around 1996 if memory serves; life has been busy for all of us of course, so I too have contributed to the death of the genre by tending to pick up the graphic novels or collections rather than the monthlies featured at the local comic shop. This book was a thirteen part series, spanning from one Halloween to the next and featuring a somewhat involved plot as the Batman tracks down a serial murderer who strikes only during holidays. Many characters feature cameos including Catwoman, Joker and some others (avoiding spoilage here) so its a fast and fun read.

See more ...

[ Category: / arts / comics ] [link] [Comments]

Comics: Are these the end or beginning of days?
Tue, 20 Dec 2005

It is difficult to post to a blog in the runners-up days before Christmas without revealing ones recent where-abouts to a feisty and cunning wife, so instead I'll post about a recent conversation I had with some shopkeeps.

Comic stores are an interesting den; sometimes they're not more than hole-the-wall jernts with a few racks of goods, while other times they're larger establishments featuring figures and other tie-ins - video and anime, computer or tabletop games (RPGs!), you name it. Cool stuff (if you consider the Dungeon Master's Guide cool stuff, like I do.) You'll note that all of these things are the sorts of activites that attract geeks and obsessives so you just know that the shops are neat places for High Nerding. Anyway, these shops tend to be owned by real humans .. individuals. There are no big box malls running these places.. they just don't make enough money and so somehow remain the grit in the book industry. Nice.

See more ...

[ Category: / arts / comics ] [link] [Comments]

Comics: Serenity (aka Firefly)
Thu, 17 Nov 2005

I've been quiet a couple of days (terrible loss I know ;) as I was in training for a certification; I'll talk^H^H^H^Hbitch about that later. For now, I'll just say - perogies are amazing, but perogies are more amazing with meaty-spaghetti sauce. Speaking of tasty segues, it's very delicious watching Sony getting beaten-up in the public media for it's evil Windows and privacy-invading rootkit. For instance, while driving into the office today 680 News-radio featured a brief story about the state of things - though they got all the facts incorrect of course. Wonderful - A tech blog has kicked Sony right in the shins. Lawyers will make their move and perhaps Evil Corporate Bastards will regain just a little of their humanity (we can dream, right?) - and maybe 50 years from now we can look back and say "when we were young and free, at least we got some skin."

I'm still trying to work through the 10 or so episodes of the short-lived Firefly television show - time being what it is - but of the 4 or 5 episodes I've seen so far, I'm loving it. Apparently it ends abrubtly (as the show was cancelled) and the silver-screen movie picks up several years later (in both real world and virtual chronologies), so the three-issue comic set attempts to bridge that.. interregnum. I'll read through them once I finish up with the TV show set and let you know how they go.

Really, I just want a Firefly (the ship) figurine to perch atop my monitor in the office, beside my SDF-1.

[ Category: / arts / comics ] [link] [Comments]

Comics: Sweaty men and thin plots
Fri, 15 Jul 2005

Comics are cool, and then not cool - like skateboards and Def Leppard. (pause for applause) (ducking thrown tomatos) Thankfully with movies like Spiderman, X-Men and Batman making inroads to the public ethermind, comics and graphic novels are cool again. (And with Lord of the Rings being enormously popular, maybe a few people will learn to read again. Books I mean, and not just magazines with hot goth artwork girls by Neil Gaiman :) Regardless of what was cool or not back in the day, I collected a ragged assortment of comic books when I was a kid -- some nifty ones (since I was the sort of punk who liked things no one else did), and some uncool books (just because they were the kind a kid liked -- by which I mean inexpensive!) The result - my little library included some great to not-so-great stuff, like the original black and white packaged-in-baggies-with-cardboard-backing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles issue #1. And the infamous Dr. Fate sex-change issues.

See more ...

[ Category: / arts / comics ] [link] [Comments]