New year, new project

This is taken from what may end up being the opening of a possible zine I might make at some point.

What do you love? Me, I love a great many things but I’ve never been one of those fans that obsesses about one thing to the near exclusion of all else. I love Star Wars and Star Trek (although Star Trek to a much lesser degree if we’re being honest. And I love Babylon 5. And Flash Gordon. 

I love comic books. All comic books. I am neither a DC or a Marvel or an Image or a Dark Horse guy. I can’t imagine only reading Marvel or DC books, because why cut yourself from so many good books.

I am not a horror guy but I like people that are horror people. They’re good people.

I love sports. I’m a Detroit fan and I love the Tigers and the Red Wings. I am continuously scared by the Lions. I am a bandwagon Pistons fan. I do not see a distinction between my love of comics and my love of sports. Most of the time they go hand in hand because there’s nothing more peaceful to me than reading comics with a football game on in the background.

I hate people that use the phrase “sportsball”. Ironically or ironically. Stop using it.

I love anime. Old school, new school, subbed or dubbed. Sci fi, fantasy, romance, harem, real robot, fake robot, doesn’t matter.

…I’ll finish this later…

Buy some comics. It's fun. If that's your thing.

These are just some random thoughts I have on comic books coming out on 2/8. Please note, I buy digitally, I am a cheap ass, and almost everything I buy these days is Image or old DC books. I’m also going through a bit of a Wildstorm renaissance at the moment; rereading Sleeper, buying Divine Right which is always 99 cents an issue. I reread Brian Woods DV8 miniseries the other day and was that a missed opportunity to follow up on the book. DC should think about folding them into the DCU as a foil for the Teen Titans. Anyway, comics!

East of West #31 – Best comic on the stands. Get at me.

Birthright #22 – Also the best comic on stands. Also get at me. I like to have my cake and eat it too because who just buys cake and doesn’t eat it? “Hey, here’s a cake, let’s just look at it.”

Green Valley #5 – I read the first issue, and it was good enough but I’m willing to wait for the series to hit a $1 sale.

Savage Dragon has published #220 issues. Spawn has published #270. Think about that.

James Bond Felix Leiter #2 – I bring this up only because I was watching Casino Royale a few weeks ago and I really want a Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter movie. Mostly because Jeffrey Wright is bad ass and low key as hell.

Deadpool the Duck #3 – I don’t know if I should be madder at Marvel for publishing this shit or comic buyers for buying enough Deadpool spin off books to justify its publication. I’ll go with the fans because it’s more fun that way.

Buy some comics. Or Don't. I'm not your robot supervisor.

Here's a bunch of comics I have thoughts about that are coming out this week.

Checkmate by Greg Rucka feels like it should be one of those series spoken of with great reverence in the same way people talk about the original Suicide Squad or American Flagg or NFL SuperPro. Checkmate comes from the post Infinite Crisis period of DC where, at least for me, they were at a creative zenith, and while it’s been a while since I’ve read it, I remember it being one of the series I anticipated most. Checkmate took what Rucka was doing on Queen and Country and applied it to the DC Universe, crafting a smart and mature spy book with plenty of politics and also robots. Checkmate is one of those DC or Marvel comic books that come out every once in a while that is enough of a departure from other superhero comics that it feels super unique. I’m glad to see this is getting a collection, although I wonder how it will read to anyone who doesn’t remember that Batman used to date his bodyguard and then she got turned into a cyborg and then she became a spy and oh yeah Mr. Terrific was cool back then. Checkmate was good, and it's cool DC is bringing it back out.

Joyride – WHY DIDN’T MORE OF YOU READ JOYRIDE?!?!?! Ah well, everything I like is doomed. Go buy Joyride. It's good.

Detective Comics #949 and I would read so many more DC books if they had any kind of digital price drop or sales but DC has opted not to and me complaining about it such a whiney thing to do. “Ohhh, why won’t DC make their comics cheaper boo hoo hoo I’m a freaking cheapskate but I still have the scruples to not pirate books wahhh.” I know, I know this is why I don’t really complain about it too much but I still resent it like hell. Anyway, I’ve read the first three issues of Rebirth Detective and I kind of want to read more. I’ll keep waiting for a sale. Because I’m a cheap bastard.

Doom Patrol #4 – I hate paying $4 for a digital comic, the story kind of doesn’t make sense and that’s largely because of being goofy for the sake of goofiness but it did have Flex Mentallo and Danny the Street (now world) and I think I’ll keep reading this. I can’t remember if I read #3 though and that’s never a good sign. Or it’s just that my memory’s shit. Probably that last one.

Hey, there’s a new Kamamdi book I guess. There’s about a 25% success rate when people take later Kirby concepts and try to revive them. I’m thinking of Walt Simonson’s Orion, and I guess people seem to like the new Moon Girl Devil Dinosaur comic but I guess that begs the question of how far afield do you have to go before something is not a Kirby concept? Didio’s Omac may count, I know some people who raved about that. I’m not going to count Final Crisis because I was thinking about it tonight and I don’t think it’s actually all that good. I may need to reread it, but then I’d be spending my time reading a comic I’ve read several times and already don’t think is all that good. And don’t tell me “Well you have to read all of Morrison’s Batman and JLA and Seven Soldiers to get it” because bleegh if I’m going to read someone’s massive run it’s going to be Hickman’s Marvel Secret Warriors/FF/Avengers/Secret Wars run.

Anyway, comics! Buy them. Or buy other comics. I don’t know what you like.

Actor in Superhero Project X wants to work in Superhero Project Y

In an interview on website 1, actor stated that he would be thrilled to work on upcoming superhero movie y. Riding high off the success and fan love of superhero project x, actor is excited to perform as character in upcoming projects for company, including superhero movie y and superhero movie z.

Character is known to be in sequel to original project, but until sequel comes out, there is plenty of opportunity for character to show up in superhero movie y, superhero movie z, and many other superhero movies. I know fans would be excited to see character show up in other projects for company, so we'll just have to see if character is inserted into those projects.

Superhero project X is available to watch now and Superhero project Y is out at sometime in the future.

So much awesome!!

Thanks to Winging It In Motown for bringing this to my attention.

     

Let's go Red Wings.

Happy 35th Anniversary Mobile Suit Gundam!

In honor of my favorite anime series ever, I present you the Mobile Suit Gundam opening theme. On this day in 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam launched, changing the face of anime forever. I've been rediscovering the original series through the hardcovers of Gundam: The Origin rom Vertical books and they are awesome, except for some weird placement of words inside the original word balloons.

Anyway, Gundam is awesome and Universal Century is the best Gundam universe, regardless of what those insane G Gundam fans will tell you.

Have fun with this.

Do we complain too much about spoilers?

Over the weekend we had three nerd or nerd adjacent events happening that would be subject to concerns about spoilers; Captain America 2, the Game of Thrones premiere, and Wrestlemania. Now, fortunately the Game of Thrones premiere, while good, did not have a lot going on that people could complain about even if spoiled (that’ll come next week, trust me), so I didn’t actually see any complaining about it, which is nice. The other two things I did see a bit of complaining about, and it got me to ask if we complain too much about things being spoiled.

Now, I’m not going to say that I haven’t complained about something being spoiled for me in the past, and I can understand the frustration from it. Nobody, least of all me, wants to have their enjoyment of something ruined because someone couldn’t keep their big mouth shut. Call it The Sixth Sense Syndrome. Ever since that movie came out, we as a film obsesses community have become increasingly obsessed with having every single moment of a movie not spoiled before you see the movie.

When it comes to Cap 2, I can understand why someone who hasn’t seen it would want to go in fresh, but to be honest, that movie was so predictable that I would call it spoiler proof. There’s one character that shows up in the middle that’s a little surprising to see, and is awesome, but the plot beats? I had them figured out from the commercials. One of my problems with the movie is that it’s so damn predictable but the films writers and directors pretend like I’m supposed to be shocked.

As for Wrestlemania, it’s a live sporting event, and even though the WWE has a new streaming service and there is a new way to time shift it, I’m sorry but people are going to be watching and talking about it online live. Nobody gets to complain about the Super Bowl being spoiled for them.

In the end, my complaint is that our social media discussion is now being determined by people who either time shift their TV watching, or by people who either wait or don’t have the time to see a movie on the first weekend. And again, I can understand that people with wives, kids, responsibilities, what have you are not able to see it right away. And if you see the movie on Thursday night and are shouting out important plot points the same night, that’s kind of being a dick. However, if I don’t have a wife, kids, responsibilities, what have you, why do I need to wait some mysteriously determined amount of time to talk about something online? Why do the people who wait the longest get to decide when I can talk about something?

This is all just a part of a bigger online problem where everyone just wants to complain about stuff, which is EXACTLY what I’m doing now, so the snake will just continually eat its own tail. We are all Goldilocks looking for the perfect bowl of porridge and if you follow people on twitter or facebook who continually spoil stuff for you, maybe stop following them.

I don’t know, sometimes I just get sick of seeing people complain about the horror of having stuff spoiled and I just needed to vent about it. I recognize I am a hypocrite about it, if that helps. And if I have such a need to talk about something I just saw, or something I watched live, maybe I should be finding a place to talk to like-minded people. Maybe twitter, which is my primary social media, isn’t the best place for these kinds of discussions. I hate message boards though, so maybe the problem is me and I just need to not worry so much about this. I like to think I’m pretty good about censoring myself and not ruining things for others.

Anyway, agree/disagree, my rant is over and you can go on with your day. I think I may try to get back to using this blog more often. Who the hell knows.