Thursday, October 2, 2008
Bucky v Jason
I meant to post this months ago, but my initial draft was much too long and it boiled down to an level of nitpicky detail that, quite frankly, wasn't the direction I wanted to take it. So here, instead, is something I whipped up in 15 minutes.
It may be helpful to preface this by noting that I am, without exception, a DC person. Even ignoring the fact that I currently refuse to pay full price for anything Marvel is putting out right now as a means of boycotting One More Day (which is a shame, because I would love to be getting the Dark Tower stuff and Secret Invasion does seem pretty nifty, but I have to stick to my guns), I was always a DC person. Specifically, I am a Batman person. With the exception of Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive and War Games/Crimes, I have the trade paperbacks of pretty much every major Bat crossover of the last 15 or so years. My collection of Marvel books is much smaller, and aside from Ultimate Spider-man, there is not a single Marvel character who I have multiple graphic novels for. The reason I bring this up is to make it known that I am heavily biased towards anything and everything DC does, which should make my final opinion all the more telling.
What we have here is the revival of two formerly dead sidekicks. Bucky Barnes, Captain America's sidekick who was killed during World War II, and Jason Todd, the Robin who Joker beat with a crowbar and then blew up. Both have been dead for years (in real-time; Bucky died in 1954-1968, depending on which source you're using, and Jason Todd was offed in 1988) and both were revived at about the same time.
I linked the Omnibus here, when really I am talking about a particular storyarc, but the Omnibus is definitely worth it. The individual Winter Soldier arc is probably available in a trade paperback, if you look for it...
And this would be the revival of Jason. There is a sequel to this, Under the Hood II, but I haven't read it and I have heard it wasn't too great.
Much as it pains me to say it, despite being a Batman guy, and despite liking Jason Todd quite a bit, the Captain America story is better in nearly every way. The supporting cast is introduced in a way that is more organic to the story, everything you need to know is explained to you in the actual story and you don't need to do research to understand it all, and the writing is just plain better.
I will state, for the record, that I have no issue with the manner of the return; Superboy wall punches don't bother me in the least.
Read more...
It may be helpful to preface this by noting that I am, without exception, a DC person. Even ignoring the fact that I currently refuse to pay full price for anything Marvel is putting out right now as a means of boycotting One More Day (which is a shame, because I would love to be getting the Dark Tower stuff and Secret Invasion does seem pretty nifty, but I have to stick to my guns), I was always a DC person. Specifically, I am a Batman person. With the exception of Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive and War Games/Crimes, I have the trade paperbacks of pretty much every major Bat crossover of the last 15 or so years. My collection of Marvel books is much smaller, and aside from Ultimate Spider-man, there is not a single Marvel character who I have multiple graphic novels for. The reason I bring this up is to make it known that I am heavily biased towards anything and everything DC does, which should make my final opinion all the more telling.
What we have here is the revival of two formerly dead sidekicks. Bucky Barnes, Captain America's sidekick who was killed during World War II, and Jason Todd, the Robin who Joker beat with a crowbar and then blew up. Both have been dead for years (in real-time; Bucky died in 1954-1968, depending on which source you're using, and Jason Todd was offed in 1988) and both were revived at about the same time.
I linked the Omnibus here, when really I am talking about a particular storyarc, but the Omnibus is definitely worth it. The individual Winter Soldier arc is probably available in a trade paperback, if you look for it...
And this would be the revival of Jason. There is a sequel to this, Under the Hood II, but I haven't read it and I have heard it wasn't too great.
Much as it pains me to say it, despite being a Batman guy, and despite liking Jason Todd quite a bit, the Captain America story is better in nearly every way. The supporting cast is introduced in a way that is more organic to the story, everything you need to know is explained to you in the actual story and you don't need to do research to understand it all, and the writing is just plain better.
I will state, for the record, that I have no issue with the manner of the return; Superboy wall punches don't bother me in the least.
Read more...
Monday, August 18, 2008
My Debut Novel
Since I haven't plugged my own book lately, here we go.
Excerpts and purchase links hidden beneath the cut!
You can read an excerpt of the first chapter here. You can read an excerpt of the second here at this link over here.
And if you'd like to purchase a copy, that can be done at The Official Store!
Read more...
Excerpts and purchase links hidden beneath the cut!
You can read an excerpt of the first chapter here. You can read an excerpt of the second here at this link over here.
And if you'd like to purchase a copy, that can be done at The Official Store!
Read more...
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Black Comedy up to 61% off!
While I am not one of those people who fall head over heels in love with black comedies, there are quite a few I am pretty fond of, and Amazon is having a pretty decent sale on them.
Jeff Goldblum is always funny when commenting on the absurdity of any situation, and it's got Kramer before he was Kramer, so that's good enough for me. And for $6? Fantastic.
$10.49 is well worth the price of this movie (which is, essentially, a fake documentary about a serial killer whose biggest role models are Michael Myers and Jason), but I see they have used copies for $1.48, which is ridiculously cheap.
And finally we have this movie, which is a dumb, dumb, DUMB movie that crosses voodoo zombies with Romero zombies and turns it into a bad sex comedy, but it was so dumb it got a few laughs out of me.
There's a good twenty other black comedies on sale, the full list of which is available here
Read more...
Jeff Goldblum is always funny when commenting on the absurdity of any situation, and it's got Kramer before he was Kramer, so that's good enough for me. And for $6? Fantastic.
$10.49 is well worth the price of this movie (which is, essentially, a fake documentary about a serial killer whose biggest role models are Michael Myers and Jason), but I see they have used copies for $1.48, which is ridiculously cheap.
And finally we have this movie, which is a dumb, dumb, DUMB movie that crosses voodoo zombies with Romero zombies and turns it into a bad sex comedy, but it was so dumb it got a few laughs out of me.
There's a good twenty other black comedies on sale, the full list of which is available here
Read more...
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
It's noir...with robots! And mutants!
While I was initially skeptical -- the Maltese Falcon didn't have a 700 pound robot, after all -- the book turned out to be an absolute joy. It never drags, everything follows in a logical fashion, and the final scenes are just begging to be turned into a big budget Hollywood blockbuster (which, in retrospect, tends to go against noir conventionals, as well, but it's so enjoyable it doesn't matter).
Read more...
While I was initially skeptical -- the Maltese Falcon didn't have a 700 pound robot, after all -- the book turned out to be an absolute joy. It never drags, everything follows in a logical fashion, and the final scenes are just begging to be turned into a big budget Hollywood blockbuster (which, in retrospect, tends to go against noir conventionals, as well, but it's so enjoyable it doesn't matter).
Read more...
Monday, July 7, 2008
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