Has it been three weeks already? Time flies when you're splitting your time between writing a novel and generally goofing off.
Grant Morrison's epic seven-year run on Batman ended Wednesday with the release of the final issue of Batman Inc. (The image is the variant cover Morrison himself drew.) Yeah, it was awesome. I'm not about to give anything away, but I will say that the finale was more low-key than most readers were expecting, yet the book paid off emotionally in the best possible ways. There are echoes of every phase of Morrison's run, and Batman's overall history, and several enticing threads for other creators to follow up on if they so choose. The final page, in particular, makes me wish Morrison was planning to return in a year or two to follow up on some of them himself. Chris Burnham's art is gorgeous, of course. Morrison's run is already regarded as one of the finest ever featuring the character, and I think that, as time goes by, it will be recognized as the greatest Batman run of all time.
Here's a look at the recently-completed New Century Global Center in China, now the largest building in the world.
The Magnavox Oddyssey, released in 1972, was the world's first video game console. You can check out a cool photo gallery of an Odyssey unboxing here. While we're on the subject of video games, here's a cool collection of photos and info on most video game consoles that have existed. Even if you're well-acquainted with the history of video games, you're bound to see a couple you didn't know about.
My first book is now available for the Nook, Kobo, and Apple devices, as well as the Kindle. You can download it here, and you'll receive a zip file containing Nightmare Escapade in mobi, epub, and pdf formats, so you'll be able to read it on pretty much any device. Go check it out, and spread the word!
Weird Al did an AMA yesterday! Go check it out, some good stuff in there.
There have been plenty of "I found a sealed safe!" posts on Reddit, but here's a photo album from someone who actually followed up, opened it, and photographed the contents!
That's it for this week! Just haven't had the time to put together a larger post this week, between working on my next book and the usual stuff. (Although, I've been working on it long enough that it probably is part of "the usual stuff" at this point.) Anyway, everyone enjoy the weekend, and I'll see you next week!
What a week! Wednesday brought the stunning news that Microsoft has done a complete 180 on the mandatory online check-in and the used game restrictions that were recently announced for the upcoming Xbox One console. (Although the internet was quick to claim some sort of victory, we can be pretty damn sure the move is motivated by Microsoft's realization that it would wind up making far less money if it dug in its heels and stuck with the various restrictions. The outcry was loud and violent enough that it was an unmistakable conclusion.)
Personally, I thought the announced policies were restrictive enough that they partly led to my decision to preorder a PS4 rather than an Xbone, but the outcry was taken to rather ridiculous levels. Reddit, in particular, seemed extremely hypocritical; Valve's Steam platform is absolutely adored, and Valve can do no wrong, but when Microsoft tried to implement something very damn close to Steam's system, they were crucified for it. I think the restrictions were a bad idea, but I don't like them on Steam, either. Of course, it must be noted that Steam also brings many positive features to the table along with the drawbacks, and Microsoft was bringing the negative aspects of the service with no evidence that the good stuff would be included with them. People do not like being told how they can buy their games and what they can do with them, and if you're gonna try doing that, you'd damn well better have some great bonuses to make up for that lack of freedom. Microsoft may well have delivered on that, but there was no indication that they would, and they paid the price. Under the circumstances, backing down was far and away the best option.
If you're still undecided about which next-gen console you want, here's a handy graphic with direct comparisons in pretty much every category.
Here is a fun photo gallery chronicling a group of people decorating an old van with Sharpies.
Finally, I've gotten pretty sick of some of the complaints about Man of Steel, the thoroughly awesome Superman movie that debuted last week. (Maybe you've heard of it.) No movie is flawless, of course, and I have no issue with people who just didn't dig the movie. However, some of the incessant gripes are downright ridiculous, even by the standard of whining we've come to expect from the internet whenever a comic-based movie is made. Spoilers lie ahead, so highlight the following if you want to keep reading: "Superman DOES NOT KILL" has become the mantra for a great many people in the past week. To them I say, "Oh, is that so?" That looks an awful lot like Superman executing three super-powered criminals to me! Oh, and one of them is General Zod, the very same dude who Superman is forced to kill in Man of Steel! This is from 1988's Superman #22. Not a hoax, not an imaginary story! It also bears mention that the beloved Christopher Reeve version of Superman also killed Zod in Superman 2. I've never heard anyone go apeshit over that, and Superman was far more callous about it, and didn't show a shred of remorse. Look, the movie has its flaws, and not everyone is gonna like it. But c'mon, don't try to bash the movie based on something as spurious as this. People love to claim fictional characters as their own in some way based on their personal ideal of the character-- and surprise, surprise, that nearly always just happens to be the version they first encountered when they were children-- and deem anything that sways from that ideal just plain wrong. If someone doesn't like the movie, that is just fine, but they should at least try to judge the movie on its own merits, without dragging their own personal baggage into it as if the director should have hired them as a consultant for the project. I don't normally get so annoyed about people on the internet disliking something, but I've encountered this several times daily since last Friday, and I had to have my say.
I'm taking a break from working on my next book for this week's post, so it'll be a pretty short one.
We saw Man of Steel last night, and it is pretty awesome. Performances are fantastic across the board, Hans Zimmer's score is amazing, and WETA continues its streak as the best digital effects studio in the business. Russell Crowe is a standout, bringing so much pathos and dignity to Jor-El. I was very pleased that he has so much screen time. There is no post-credits scene, however, so don't bother waiting. I recommend the movie highly, so make a point of going to see it this weekend. Man of Steel is the Superman movie we've all been waiting for.
Much of this week has been consumed watching all the videos from E3, where Microsoft was the victim of a sound kick in the nuts by Sony. I was more interested in seeing what Microsoft brought to the table, since we'd seen little of the games that are on the way for the Xbox One. Micrsoft did have a very strong presentation, showing off tons of exclusives. Most of them are interesting, and a few look truly awesome.
Still, the specter of the announcements that the Xbox One will require you to check in online once a day to play your games, and that publishers can disable the option or charge a fee to play used games cast a pall over everything. When the $500 price tag was revealed, it didn't help matters.
Enter Sony. After a decent conference, they dropped a sequence of bombshells: The PS4 requires no internet check-in. Ever. The PS4 has no restrictions on used games. On top of all that, the retail price is $399, a full hundred dollar less than the Xbox One. Without being burdened by an expensive new Kinect, Sony is able to undercut the Xbox One significantly.
The upshot of all this is that the PS4 has been enjoying a massive surge in popularity, and many longtime Xbox loyalists are even jumping ship. Personally, I've gone with the Xbox for the past two console generations, but I'm no fanboy with some misguided sense of company loyalty. I always evaluate what is available and go with what fits me best. That was the Xbox the last two times around, but not this time. Sony got pretty arrogant and made some bad decisions with the PS3, but they've learned from those mistakes, and built a new console that is exactly what their customers want. Meanwhile, it seems that Microsoft has only been interested in building the console they want.
Microsoft is not doing anything with their new console that Valve hasn't been doing for years with their Steam platform, but until they demonstrate that these restrictions will also bring the positive aspects of Steam as well as the negatives, I won't go near it. I preordered a PS4, and I'm looking forward to it.
A short column this week, and it's largely Batman-related. That's hardly a bad thing though, right?
Forgot to include this in last week's ramblings, so here it is now! If you haven't seen this, make sure you're sitting down and that you have the next ten minutes free, because you'll probably wanna watch it again as soon as it's done.
Pretty goddamn awesome, right? I love the bulky armor Batman is wearing, as it looks as if it will naturally evolve into the sleek, streamlined armor we had in Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. I love the inclusion of Black Mask as the (apparently) main antagonist. He's one of those C-listers I've always really liked that doesn't get used too often. We've had references to him in both previous Arkham games, so that makes it extra cool to see him take center stage. As for Deadshot, another favorite of mine, we can't see too much of his costume here, and we don't know if this is his default look for the game anyway, but it has to be an improvement over his Arkham City costume. That was the only redesign in that game that was truly awful.
Of course, there's also the issue of the voice cast. It's been confirmed that Kevin Conroy, who personifies Batman more than anyone else at this point, is not the voice of the Dark Knight in Origins. Mark Hammill won't be reprising his role as the Joker, either, but at least we were prepared for that with his insistence that he was done with the character after he completed his work on Arkham City. (Of course, we all still hope he can be lured back from time to time.) We have yet to hear what the characters will sound like in the game; hopefully all will be well, but however good it turns out, Conroy and Hammill will be missed. At least we can take consolation in the knowledge that Conroy is returning as Batman in the all-but-confirmed sequel to Arkham City that Asylum/City developers Rocksteady are working on.
Justice League of America #4 was released Wednesday, and it ended on a hell of a cliffhanger. Highlight if you want to read the spoiler: After being caught snooping around in the headquarters of the Secret Society, Catwoman was killed, shot in the head at point-blank range. It's possible it could be a fake-out, but if so, it's a damn convincing one. The whole deal was as unambiguous as it gets in superhero comics. You can see the pages in question here. It was a solid issue as usual, although the art is still the weakest point. Finch's art, which I normally find murky and just plain ugly, has looked very rushed since this series began. Brett Booth fills in for this issue, and while I'm not a fan of his work, it is an improvement. Matt Kindt's backup stories starring the Martian Manhunter remain the best part of the book.
This is a fantastic cover of A-Ha's sappy classic Take On Me that I overheard during an interminable visit to the mall a few weeks back. I've always liked the music of Sara Bareilles whenever I've heard it in the past, but I'd never come across this one before.
The trailer for Machete Kills has arrived, and it looks like they're doing their damnedest to top the awesomely outrageous Machete.
This looks so amazing that I'm not sure I'll make it out alive.
Batman Noir: Eduardo Risso was released Wednesday(although Amazon won't have it for a few more days). This book reprints so much excellent material that it's nearly criminal. The star attractions are probably Broken City and Batman: Knight of Vengeance, both of which are collaborations with Risso's 100 Bullets partner in crime Brian Azzarello. Broken City followed the far more hyped bloated and overrated mess Hush, and is far superior in every way. It's never attained the popularity and regard it deserves, so I hope it gets a higher profile as a result of its inclusion in this new collection. Knight of Vengeance, of course, is the Flashpoint tie-in that was easily the best thing about that event. I really wish it was an ongoing series set on that world, continuity be damned. There's other great material here, of course, including Batman/Deathblow: After the Fires, the excellent Batman strip from the brilliant Wednesday Comics, and a nice little Batman Black & White tale. This is one of the handful of collections I've been looking forward to all year-- thankfully it actually was released, thank you very fucking much for cancelling the paperback editions of the Starman Omnibus, DC-- and you can bet your ass I'll be getting my hands on it as soon as finances allow. It gets my highest possible recommendation, so grab it if you're the slightest bit interested.
Happy Whacking Day, everyone! The month-long Whacking Day event in the Simpsons: Tapped Out game has ended, but today is the actual date of the holiday. Speaking of the game, how did everyone do? I finished getting all the prizes a week or so ago, and managed to get the final Whack Box Wednesday night, just under the wire. (For those of you who don't know about the Whack Boxes, they're no big deal. Once you got the final Whacking Day prize, you won a Whack Box for every 1,000 snakes you whacked after that. You either got money or up to three donuts, and the money, obviously, was far more common. I got a total of four donuts out of the ten Whack Boxes.) It's possible that there will be something special in the game today, but as I'm writing this section of the post early Friday morning, it hasn't happened yet!
Edit: Of course, soon after this posted and I opened the game again, I saw that the level 29 update had arrived. Additonally, Whacking Day has been extended until the 16th! Good news for those who still don't have all of the prizes. Get back to whacking!
There's been a lot of grumbling around the 'net over DC's announcement that He-Man will be getting a new costume in their Masters of the Universe comic this summer. (I find the Ed Benes art far more disagreeable than the new costume, but whatever.) Much of the dismay is directed at He-Man's swanky new pants. I've seen a ton of bitching, mostly by people who, by their own admission, don't even read the comic. There have been a couple of valid points made, but everyone seems to have forgotten a few things:
1. This is not permanent.
2. This is not the first time He-Man has worn pants. The character will miraculously survive.
3. The costume is an updated version of the classic Battle Armor He-Man, so it actually has a basis in classic MOTU lore. (Yeah, the old BA He-Man toy didn't have pants, but the design is the obvious basis for the new costume.)
4. The whole thing is stirring up some interest in the MOTU comic, which is a good thing, since it's a pretty good comic that has been unjustly ignored, for the most part.
5. This "controversy" is pretty dumb, even by internet argument standards.
Everyone just needs to take a few deep breaths and relax. Everything is gonna be okay(well, as okay as things ever are). And for the people I've seen complain that the new design is a sign that DC is getting ready to integrate MOTU into the main DCU, and that we'll see He-Man on the Justice League before the year is out, I say that I'd be thrilled by that, honestly. I seriously doubt that's gonna happen, but I'd love it if it did.
Edit: And now, this news has broken. Masters of the Universe vs. DC Universe kicks off in August! I really thought this was too much to hope for, but it's happening! C'mon, DC, put Teela or He-Man on the Justice League when this is over!
Here is a novel from 2006 that features WWE wrestlers working as secret agents for the government. It sounds so awful that it has to be great! I have no idea how it existed for this long without me hearing about it.
Free Comic Book Day was a resounding success, and our local shop was much busier than we've ever seen it. We arrived at about the same time we did for last year's FCBD, and the store was at least twice as crowded! It's great to see it grow bigger each year. I picked up most of the free comics I wanted, and snagged the Sergio Aragones variant cover for Justice League #19 for $3! I normally can't manage to give a damn about variant covers, but this one was a must-have. Lunch at one of downtown Hattiesburg's great restaurants followed, then visits to a couple of the thrift stores I enjoy diving into so much. I picked up some nice fodder for future Trash Rants, so consider this your warning. ;)
After all that, we went to see Iron Man 3. While I am sure there are many hardcore Iron Man fans who are royally pissed about the big reveal, I thought it was a fun movie overall. It had the requisite plot holes and shortcomings that you just have to ignore in the name of enjoying most action movies(most movies in general, really), but there was one in particular that was so huge that it just bugged the hell out of me. This is gonna involve a spoiler, so highlight the text if you wanna keep reading. Tony had dozens of fully functional suits of Iron Man armor ready to go at a moment's notice, so why, exactly, did he wait to use any of them until the end of the movie? There were several times where he was well and truly fucked, not to mention the times other people were as well, and he couldn't be bothered to summon a suit of armor. Obviously, the reason he didn't was plot convenience. It wouldn't have taken much- just a line to explain why he didn't or couldn't summon the armors earlier than he did-- to smooth the whole thing over. Like I said, I'm accustomed to ignoring plot holes as long as a movie is fun and generally well-made, but this one really stuck in my craw.
All that aside, it was a fun movie that didn't measure up to the first IM film. Regarding all the rumors that RDJ may not return to the role over payment disputes, Marvel/Disney need to just give him whatever he wants to continue. Most of the other roles can be recast without too much fuss, but they need RDJ to be Tony Stark for as long as he is willing to do it. The first Iron Man movie took a character who was a solid B-lister, not to mention a complete unknown outside of comics readers, and made him a huge star and a solid A-lister practically overnight. So much of that is due to RDJ's performance and charisma, and the movies-- and their profits-- will take a huge hit if and when he departs. Marvel Studios needs him far more than he needs it. That said, the rest of the cast and crew are due some serious raises, with the kind of insane profits these movies are making. It's disgusting that co-stars such as Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner made so little for The Avengers when RDJ and the studio is raking in so much.
Anyway, rant over for now. I've still got a good bit of stuff to move back in, so I'm out for today.
It's been a few weeks since my last post; everything I own has been packed up, and most of it still is. We've been crazy busy with the renovation, and I've only just gotten things set up well enough for me to sit down and write a new post this week. (I was using my tablet to get online before, and if you think I'm about to type out an entire post using a seven-inch touchscreen, you've got another thing comin'!) Anyway, a hell of a lot has happened, so let's catch up on some of it!
First of all, the latest trailer for June's Man of Steel is amazing. I've been looking forward to the movie for a while now, but this trailer has ramped up my excitement to almost unbearable levels. Everything looks fantastic, and Hans Zimmer appears to have worked another of his musical miracles based on the parts of the score featured, plus what I've heard elsewhere. If you've managed to squeak by this past week without watching it, give it a look right now. Hell, watch it even if you've already seen it! It's that damn good.
Wrestlemania was on the 7th, and I watched it, of course. It was a decent, if predictable, show. Punk vs. 'Taker was the match to beat, and no one managed to do so. Rock vs. Cena version 2.0 was as by-the-numbers as you can get, but given the skill and hard work of both those guys, it was still pretty good. Still, the excitement I had for their rematch withered and died on the vine once it became clear a month or so before the show that Punk wouldn't be involved. Seriously, a three-way match would have been far better, and added the bit of newness to the mix that was desperately needed. The following night's episode of Raw was far better than 'Mania, actually. The live audience played a big role in that, adding so much to the show as only a truly wired audience can.
Superman and Lois Lane celebrated their 75th anniversary last week, and there have been tons of features all over the web. I've enjoyed CBR's coverage most of all, ranging from interviews with Superman creative teams from the past, and the extensive features on the CSBG blog. The fan-voted list of the 75 greatest Superman stories is a great place to start if you're looking to read some quality Superman comics. Sure, there are a few stinkers included, but that's bound to happen anytime you have a large group of people voting on anything; a few of the popular choices are bound to be sub-par. By and large, it's a damn good list.
Batman and Robin continues to be one of the finest superhero books on the market, as issue 19 amply displays. Red Robin guest stars, and although he unfortunately doesn't get much page time, the continuing story of Bruce dealing with his son's death is moving and engrossing. A surprising appearance by Frankenstein and the introduction of Carrie Kelly(the Robin of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns) into the current DCU make the issue that much better. If you like solid superhero books and you're not reading this series, you're cheating yourself.
Anyone who digs comics and streams Netflix has probably been lamenting the lack of DC animated shows available on the service. That finally changed last week, as Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Batman Beyond, and Batman: The Brave and the Bold were all added! Now, they just need to add Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: TAS, and The New Batman Adventures. And yeah, I already have most of those shows on DVD, but it's so much more convenient to stream them. I just wonder what the holdup is on the rest of the shows?
Whacking Day has arrived in the Simpsons: Tapped Out mobile game, and a slew of new content is included. With all the new content and features we got with the Whacking Day update, I was shocked that we also got the level 28 update only a week later, which delivered Fat Tony, Legs, and Louie, along with a few new buildings, and the Rich Texan as a premium character. Everyone has been whacking away for the past two weeks trying to get all the Whacking Day prizes, and the May 9th deadline is fast approaching! I snagged the final prize Monday night, so now I'm getting one of the Whack Boxes for every 1,000 snakes I whack. Each Whack Box grants you money or donuts; guess which one I keep getting?
Monday brought us the sad, sad news that Futurama has been cancelled again. The show has definitely had its ups and downs, surviving a previous cancellation by transitioning into a series of movies before returning to TV, and I'm one of the millions who have been with it every step of the way. I'm damn sad that it is ending, but at least we still have those final thirteen episodes to look forward to.
Free Comic Book Day, one of my favorite days of the year, is next Saturday! If you're unfamiliar with it, FCBD is held on the first Saturday in May each year, and is exactly what it sounds like: comic book publishers offer special issues for free, which are available at comic stores across the country. It's become a pretty big deal to Cindy and I, and we always make a day of it. We usually hit the store just before lunchtime, have lunch downtown, and then go see whatever comic-based epic is showing in the theater(that'll be Iron Man 3 this year). We also make time to check out a few other locally-owned businesses that we don't get to visit as often as we'd like, and just generally have a ton of fun! You can check out this year's FCBD offerings at the official website.
That's it for this week! Things are returning to normal here, so posts should proceed normally from here on out.
I'm still in the middle of packing up all my worldly possessions, so things are pretty hectic around here. This week's column is again a bit on the short side as a result.
To kick things off, here's the trailer for Saints Row 4, which was released last Friday(after I already had that week's post up). It looks appropriately insane. I friggin' love that you're the president of the US in this game! Hopefully we'll be able to bling the fuck out of our White House crib.
What the hell is going on at DC? Wednesday, we discovered that incoming Action Comics writer Andy Diggle has left the book, while Joshua Hale Fialkov has left the Green Lantern books he was slated to write. The first issues of their respective runs have yet to even ship. Yesterday, the rumor made the rounds that Fialkov's exit was due to his objections over an editorially-mandated edict to kill John Stewart. Writers leaving books over creative differences is nothing new, but there has been an unusually high occurrence of such conflicts since the DC New 52 relaunch. Frankly, DC editorial seems to be a bit of a mess, and that's not good for the line. It results in some poorly-written books, and that screws the readers who spend good money on them. I still enjoy a good many DC books, but all too many have been negatively affected by such issues in the past couple of years. There is one editor in particular who is involved with several of the books that have had these issues; one wonders if he might be the problem. Whatever the case may be, I hope DC editorial can get its act together a little better.
Here is an awesome story about the 1400 pound block of cheese President Andrew Jackson received as a gift, and how he disposed of it. This is a must-read.
This dude has figured out a way to grow pears that are shaped like baby Buddhas. That just rocks on so many levels.
I leave you with this animated Calvin and Hobbes strip, made by animator Adam Brown. Brown wisely chose a strip that is silent, so you don't have to worry about being weirded out by suddenly hearing a voice for Calvin.
Spring break is upon us, that special time in which we take a week to celebrate my birthday! You're welcome. It's also been a crazy hectic week around here, so this week's column is well on the short side.
Reviews for the new Evil Dead are coming in, and they are overwhelmingly positive. I always reserve judgment on movies until I've seen them myself, but it is encouraging to see so much enthusiasm for this movie. I may have to wait until it lands on Blu-ray or Netflix, but I am looking forward to watching it. (This is the problem with having a significant other and a set of friends who do not like horror movies. You NEVER get to go see them in the theater.)
Speaking of that classic movie franchise, reports are flowing in about a sequel to Army of Darkness, which would mean we would effectively have two Evil Dead film series at once. Sounds great to me! This is not the first time we've heard that Raimi is working on a sequel, however, so try not to get your hopes up until they actually begin filming the thing.
Here is a very interesting site about M. C. Escher's unfinished Print Gallery, and how it was completed long after his death by a couple of mathematicians.
My birthday is coming up on Monday, but I'm giving YOU a gift! I've made my first book, Nightmare Escapade: A Horror Anthology, free today through Tuesday. If you still don't have it yet for some reason, now is your chance! If you would then take a few minutes to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads, it would be much appreciated. Spread the word on Twitter and Facebook, and tell all your friends!
I was finally able to start playing The Simpsons Tapped Out last week; even with the release of the Android version of the game, it still was not available in Amazon's app store, so I had to sideload the game to be able to play it on my Kindle Fire. It's been a lot of fun building my own version of Springfield and populating the town, and the St. Patrick's Day update that came out yesterday added a couple more things, including the 50-foot magnifying glass and the leprechaun. You can check out some photos from my Springfield right here.
Via Reddit, here are some instructions on how to easily block a certain IP address that will stop all the annoying buffering on Youtube videos, returning it to the kind of smooth experience that was the norm several years ago. This post explains why this fix works.
The Big Lebowski, one of my favorite movies and a bona-fide cultural phenomenon, is turning 15. There are too many features and such celebrating the anniversary for me to run through here, so check out this link that'll let you pick and choose what you like.
I've been playing Saints Row 2 this week, after making my through the third game some time ago. There are definitely a few things the third game had that I miss in this one, but it's basically the same solid gameplay at its core, enhanced by the irreverent attitude that I love so much in the third game. It's already clear that the main story is going to be much longer in this game, but I think the third one made up for its brevity with the presentation and implementation of the missions. I just don't seem to enjoy many of the missions as much as I loved the main story in SR3. The game is still lots of fun all the same, and I'll be seeing it through to the end. The community seems pretty evenly split between those who like SR2 best and those who prefer SR3; ultimately, it mostly comes down to whether you prefer SR2's more even mix of zaniness with mostly straight-laced action and storytelling, or the balls-out insanity of SR3. For my part, I'm enjoying SR2 quite a bit, but SR3 was an absolute blast all the way through. I played through SR3's main story twice, but I don't see myself replaying this one once I've finished it.
Yesterday, DC announced that Kurt Busiek's Astro Cityis returning in June with a new ongoing series. For anyone who has read this book in the past, this obviously fantastic news! It's been far too long since we've had any Astro City, and we'd grown accustomed to only getting miniseries and one-shots, at that.
That's it for this week; download my book, and have a skeery weekend!
Between finishing my first book, promoting it, working on my follow-up novel, and general life stuff, I've fallen quite a bit behind on my comic reading over the past few months. Sure, there are a handful of comics I always read each month, but by and large, they've been piling up on my tablet. I resolved last week to catch up, and I've done just that! By the time this week's comics went on sale yesterday, I had tackled the 100+ comics that were on my tablet and whittled them down to 8 issues of Groo. (I always keep a few issues of Groo on there, don'tcha know!) I still have a good bit of work to do on my next book, so its likely that I'll fall behind again, but I'll try not to let things get quite so backed up this time. (And speaking of my next book, there should be a big announcement about it soon. Just be patient!)
There is a huge sale on all sorts of games on Xbox Live until Monday, so go check that out if you have one. There've been some good deals, but nothing so far I want but don't already have.
There were pretty huge happenings in yesterday's issue of the always sublime Batman Incorporated, which were very obnoxiously spoiled by an official press release a day earlier. This kinda crap has become increasingly common in recent years. We all understand that this leads to a significant sales bump, but would it kill them to wait until the day the issue is released so that the people who read these books regularly have a chance to read the issue without having it spoiled? Reader rage aside, here's an essay by Grant Morrison that reflects on his seven year run on the Batman books, and here is an interview with Batman and Robin writer Peter Tomasi regarding how the events of yesterday's Batman Inc will affect his book. Be warned that clicking the links above, obviously, will tip you off about what happened.
My nephew recommended the HBO series Life's Too Short to me over the weekend, so I checked it out. It's presented as a reality show about actor Warwick Davis, but he plays himself as an egotistical bastard. Fellow show creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant pop up in each episode, as well. There are plenty of celebrity cameos, and the show is thoroughly hilarious. Here's one of my favorite bits:
Reddit threads of note: I don't give two shits about Nascar, but find it cool that Daytona 500 winner Jimmie Johnson did an AMA earlier this week. We also got one from Helen Clark, the former prime minister of New Zealand. This one from a college student who teaches GED courses to prison inmates is pretty interesting. Here's one from someone who works in a chocolate factory!
You can't top getting the inside dope on chocolate, so that'll do it for this week!
Pretty sweet pic, right? Here's an entire album, all combining art from Calvin & Hobbes with photos to create something sublime. (Although the lack of reflections in the one with the wagon about to crash into the lake kinda screws that one up.) Here's another of my favorites:
You gotta love the hard-boiled adventures of Tracer Bullet, am I right?
Batwoman's epic teamup with Wonder Woman concluded with this week's issue of the always-amazing Batwoman. It was predictably awesome, but the bigger news coming out of it occurs at the end, and really should be experienced by reading the issue yourself, so go get it! I won't spoil it the way CBR did for me by pasting onto their front page Wednesday without bothering to add a spoiler warning. (Yeah, I'm just a little irritated about that. They typically post spoiler warnings for everything, mostly stuff I don't care about, but when it's something pertaining to one of my very favorite books, they just post it without a shred of concern for people who haven't read the issue yet. Probably just an oversight, but that does little to de-annoyify me. Yes, "de-annoyify" is a word now.)
I had completely forgotten about the Oscar-nominated Simpsons short that was shown before the latest Ice Age animated crap-o-rama last year. The Longest Daycare features Maggie facing off with her nemesis, unibrowed tot Gerald, in a daycare that seems like an even worse environment for a child than the Simpson home. (Longtime Simpsons fans will recognize the Ayn Rand School for Tots from the classic A Streetcar Named Marge.) The short was aired after Sunday's episode, and is well worth tracking down and viewing. It's only about four minutes long, but the wordless short is both amusing and moving. Check out the trailer:
Following last week's announcement that Geoff Johns and the rest of the creative teams were leaving the Green Lantern books, we didn't have to wait long to find out who will be replacing them. We'll have Robert Venditti and Billy Tan on the main GL book, Joshua Hale Fialkov writing both Green Lantern Corps and Red Lanterns, Bernard Chang taking over as artist for GLC & Alessandro Vitti as the new RL artist, and Justin Jordan and Brad Walker taking over Green Lantern: New Guardians. Additionally, there will be a new series starring fan-favorite Orange Lantern Larfleeze by Keith Giffen and Scott Kolins.
I'm split about these changes. I usually like Robert Venditti's work, but I'm not crazy about Tan's art; it's quite a step down after having Doug Mahnke on the book for the past few years. Fialkov is another writer whose work I normally like, so no problems there. I like Chang's artwork, but this announcement means that he will be (presumably) leaving Demon Knights, so that kinda sucks. I'm unfamiliar with Vitti's work. New Guardians stars Kyle Rayner, my favorite GL, so I have some reservations about the new team on that one. Brad Walker's art is solid, if unspectacular, but the real concern I have is with the new writer, Justin Jordan. Granted, the only work of his I've read is the recently-cancelled Team 7, but it was bad enough that I dropped it after a couple of issues. Hopefully he'll do better work on this book; only time will tell.
With all the Halo posts lately, I've had a few people ask me what I think about season one of Spartan Ops, the bonus missions that are available to anyone with a copy of Halo 4 and an Xbox Live Gold account. The answer is: I dunno, because I haven't played any of it yet. I just finished the campaign a couple of days ago, and that was an undertaking that was far more trouble than it should have been. I was at the last part of the final level, about to face the Didact, when the goddamn power went out. It only went out for a few seconds, as it does at some point once every couple of weeks, but that was long enough to shut everything down and make me lose my progress. (Keep in mind, this is after I played the last level off and on for several days because it was kinda kicking my ass, so getting to the end was not easy.) At that point, I just said "Fuck it!" and watched the ending on Youtube. Turns out all I had left to do was mash a couple of buttons, so I still feel I completed the campaign since I got right up to that point before the electric company screwed me. I'll resume the level from my last saved checkpoint and finish that last bit at some point, once that irritation is not so fresh. In the meantime, I'm having fun playing Flood and Griffball, and I'll be starting Spartan Ops soon.
Speaking of Halo, Bungie, the franchise's former developer, finally made with some details about their upcoming "shared world" shooter, Destiny. We didn't get to see much aside from some concept art and less than a minute of gameplay, but Bungie did share a lot of information regarding what Destiny is all about, and what to expect when it releases. Frankly, it sounds amazing; hopefully they can pull off everything they say. You can check out everything they've shared so far here.
Sony revealed the Playstation 4 Wednesday, and I watched most of the live stream of the event. The console has a lot of promise, but Sony withheld many of the details, as expected, and often seemed hell-bent on drowning us in buzzwords. Most of the trailers and such were pre-rendered scenes, rather than actual gameplay. Bungie was brought out to close the event, to give the uninitiated an idea of how huge a deal that game is. The social aspects of the console were the most interesting to me. Hopefully we won't have to wait long for Microsoft to reveal the new Xbox.
Obviously, the big news this week is Sunday's tornado damage and the subsequent flooding. My girlfriend and I were at a restaurant Sunday afternoon when things began to get bad; we could see the sky to the west through the large windows, and it was literally black. Here's a photo she took on her phone.
The sky was much darker than it appears in the photo. Minutes later, we saw the tornado itself, and we headed into the kitchen. After a few minutes, it was clear the the tornado had gone in another direction, as it had been close enough that we would have known by that time if it had continued toward us. After things calmed down somewhat, we managed to find a path back home that wasn't blocked by fallen trees. Even thought the tornado had veered off in another direction, trees and debris from buildings were everywhere. After a few hours without electricity, the power returned; it went out for a while a few more times, but things were basically back to normal for us after that.
Not everyone in the area was so lucky. Last I saw, the official tally for Petal and Hattiesburg stands at 1439 homes damaged, and 298 of those were completely destroyed. More than 200 people lost their homes, though fortunately, no one was killed. There is much to do in the area in the aftermath; thankfully, the community has pulled together nicely to help those who were affected, and to rebuild.
Moving from that somber news to frivolous matters, DC Comics revealed that Geoff Johns is leaving Green Lantern. Johns took over the series in 2004 with Green Lantern: Rebirth, which restored dead boring douchebag Hal Jordan as the "main" GL and restored the Green Lantern Corps. The GL line quickly expanded into a franchise, supporting several series as the scope of the books broadened with the introduction of hundreds of new characters and the aggressive fleshing out of the mythos. I feel that Johns's GL lost much of its momentum and quality after Blackest Night, but it's still been a remarkably consistent and solid series over the course of the past decade. The rest of the creative teams on the GL books are leaving as well, though it remains to be seen if all-new teams are taking over the books, or if there will just be some shuffling around. Personally, I'll be surprised if Peter Tomasi doesn't take over the main GL book, but we'll have to wait and see. Whoever takes control of the franchise's steering wheel has some big shoes to fill.
DC's May solicits reveal the collections of the controversial Before Watchmen comics, which are due out in June and July. There has been much speculation about exactly how DC would go about collecting the various series, and they have settled on grouping series together (mostly) by writer. For my part, the only ones I plan to get are the Minutemen/Silk Spectre and Rorschach/Comedian collections. The other series were mostly just decent, and the Straczynski collection should be avoided at all costs, despite the excellent art.
The Death of the Family storyline concluded in Batman #17 this week, and Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo absolutely killed on this issue. Their run just keeps getting better and better, and I can definitely see it becoming one of those legendary runs that will be remembered fondly and highly recommended to new readers in years and decades to come.
Here's a photo album of a border collie who likes to balance various objects on her head.
I was able to get Halo 4 last week, thanks to a timely sale. I haven't quite finished the campaign, as I am about halfway through the final level and it's demolishing my ass, but I'm enjoying the game quite a bit so far. The campaign has been excellent overall, and even with a few irritations in the level design here and there, I don't hesitate to say it's the best campaign of any Halo game to date. (The main Halo games anyway; I have yet to play Reach.) I've seen some griping about the game not giving you enough information on the antagonist or certain events that occur, but honestly, if you find all the terminals and simply pay attention to the in-game dialogue and cutscenes, I don't see how you could be confused. I can understand some people being unhappy that you have to find the terminals and watch those videos to get the antagonist's background, but it's still part of the game, so it's not as if you're forced to go elsewhere for the information.
On every technical level, the game is absolutely superb. The graphics are probably the best of any game released to date for any game console; I really can't believe 343i managed to get a game on the Xbox 360's 7+ year-old hardware to look so damn great. Aside from the campaign, I've dabbled with the multiplayer, but haven't managed to stop playing Flood mode yet. It's loads of fun.
Reddit threads of note: Dave Grohl did an AMA, as did Bill Gates. Yes, that Bill Gates. Some pretty interesting reading in there.
Here is a gif of a cat born without the use of her hind legs. She gets by just fine.
Today is Valentine's Day, so be sure to have fun with your significant other, if applicable. (If not, be sure to get yourself some candy or something.) Here's the card my lady got today:
Jonah Hex'll give ya the screamin' thigh sweats.
I can think of no better way to wrap things up than with this gif of President Obama's exploding fist bump with Senator Mark Kirk at the State of the Union address on Tuesday night.
Finished the fight: Yes, I finally played the Halo 3 campaign. I really enjoyed it, though I agree with the people who felt that Arbiter's story deserved more attention. We spent half of Halo 2 playing as the Arbiter, and his journey was a very interesting one, but then it is shoved aside in Halo 3. The penultimate level was not much fun, either. Have I mentioned today how much I hate the fucking Flood? This level was a massive Flood clusterfuck, and I was glad when it was over. It wasn't poorly designed or anything, the Flood has just gotten that damn annoying. The good far outweighs the bad, though. It was lots of fun overall, and I'm sure I'll revisit it at some point. The legendary ending perfectly sets up Halo 4, from what I've seen of that game's opening. (And no, I did not beat the campaign on legendary; I watched it on Youtube. I'm no masochist.)
I got ODST as an early Valentine's Day gift. I'm a few levels into the campaign, and while it's interesting, I'm not having nearly as much fun. I think this will be one that I'll play a level or two at a time here and there, rathering than going through it in a day or two.
Halo 4 is on the way, thanks to a timely Amazon sale. It should be here Friday, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Via Reddit, here is a love letter found in an 8th grade classroom that demonstrates the importance of prioritizing your loves.
Marvel movie rumors: The latest batch circling the net concerns Marvel's Phase 2 movies. If these rumors are true, the Marvel movie universe's version of the Illuminati (a small group whose comics version consists of Tony Stark, Charles Xavier, Namor, and other assorted self-righteous dickbags) will trick the Hulk into entering a rocket ship, which will then travel outside of our solar system. Their plan to get him out of their hair will backfire as it did in the comics, with a Planet Hulk movie ensuing. This would lead to the Hulk returning for vengeance in the third Avengers movie. Sounds good to me, so I'm hoping these rumors are at least partially true.
Reddit threads of note: Here's one about hardcore gamers joining the military, and how they deal with their expectations being dashed on the rocks of the drastically different reality. This thread about being caught masturbating has some screamingly funny stories. There are come cringe=inducing tales in this thread about the stupidest ways redditors have injured themselves. As always, check out r/todayilearned every day or so for all kinds of fascinating bits of knowledge. It's one of my favorite spots on the internet.
Dragon Age Origins: I picked this game up for $6 not too long ago. It was one of those that looked interesting, but I eventually forgot about it for a while. I started playing it a few days ago, and I'm enjoying it so far. (I did get slightly annoyed at the coincidence when one of the first people who joined my party had the exact same name I gave my character. Grr!) I really like the origin system the game uses, where you choose an origin for your character and play through it at the beginning of the game. This system has me already wanting to start a new character to see how things will be different. One of my few gripes with my beloved Elder Scrolls games is how every game always begins the exact same way, no matter what kind of character you've created. (Believe me, by the time you're making your fifth Skyrim character, you get pretty damn sick of running around Helgen while it gets blasted into oblivion.)
Anyway, it's early yet, but at this point it looks like the game is a winner.
Looks like that's it for this week! Everyone enjoy your weekend... or else!
As many of you are aware, it's gotten increasingly tougher to keep this blog updated regularly over the past year or so. Between writing, various work and puttering around, and all the goofing off that is so very dear to me, it can be difficult to find the time to put together a post. I'm not about to let the blog fall by the wayside, however, so my solution is this weekly-ish column that will serve as a catch-all for whatever I'm up to at any given time, mostly items of interest that aren't worthy of an entire post of their own. Long posts devoted to a single topic will still appear; they'll just be fewer and further between, as has become the norm.
First of all, how the hell crazy is it that the entire month of January is already gone? On a related note, how about the nearly 80-degree days we've been having in the south? That's bad, even for the area. Anyway...
I've been sick with some kind of crud since this past weekend. This is really the first time I've been sick in about three years. Thankfully, I bounce back quickly, so I'm already basically over it. That's good, because I felt crappy enough for a few days that I didn't get much writing done. I don't think I've mentioned this here before, actually; my new book will be a novel starring Grant Mercer, the protagonist (some would disagree with the use of the word "hero") of the story Apex Predator, from Nightmare Escapade. I'll be doling out more information as the book nears release.
Here is a wonderful story about video game studio Bungie brightening a little boy's day after he had major surgery. Get your tissues ready.
If any of you haven't yet seen the thread documenting the series of prank calls 4chan perpetrated against the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop seen on the TV show Pawn Stars, here it is. It gets better and better as it goes. You might need tissues for this, too; you'll be laughing pretty damn hard.
Reddit threads of note from the past week: Redditors share secrets they have sworn to take to the grave, since it's semi-anonymous on the internet. Be warned, however: the thread has over 24,000 replies, so the rabbit hole runs deep. This one is about the strangest things you've gotten someone else to believe. Clearly, I was over-qualified for that one, so I chose one at random. Here is one of my favorites from that thread:
And, as always, you should check out r/todayilearned at least every couple of days to stumble across all kinds of handy and fascinating information.
I came across this video last week. It's a panel with Neil deGrasse Tyson, so you know it's good. Skip to about the 15 minute mark to get to Neil.
My Halo Oddyssey
I've been on a Halo kick lately. You could be forgiven for calling me a veteran of the Halo series, as I picked up the first game along with an Xbox about two months after they were released about this time in 2002. Going through the campaign cooperatively with a couple of friends(though only one at a time, as four-player coop wasn't introduced until Halo 3 in 2007) are some of my greatest game-related memories. All told, I must have played through the campaign at least a dozen times. The multiplayer didn't see as much action, since we were limited to two-player splitscreen. I was the only one of my circle of friends who had an Xbox, so system link multiplayer sessions were out.
Skip ahead to 2004, when Halo 2 was released. I was anticipating it as much as anyone, but lacked the disposable income to pick it up as soon as it came out. I was lucky to come across a used copy in Blockbuster for $6.99 a few months later, however, and took it home to fire it up. Unfortunately, the friends with whom I'd played the game a couple of years earlier no longer lived in town, so the experience just wasn't the same. I put it aside for a while, resolving to pick it up again at some point and finish it.
In 2007, as the release of Halo 3 neared, I figured it was as good a time as any to dust off the old copy of Halo 2 and give it a go. I restarted the campaign, playing it on my Xbox 360 this time. I got killed a couple of times on one level a little over halfway through, and figured I'd take a break and resume my game a little later.
As so often happens, I got wrapped up in other things and kinda forgot about it. As the spinoff and prequel Halo games were released, I thought about how I needed to finish Halo 2, but I never actually dug the game out to do it. Then, toward the end of last year, Halo 4 was released.
I was officially three full games behind. Yeah... time to catch up.
And so it was that, eight short years after I bought the damn thing, I finally beat Halo 2 last week. I wound up restarting the campaign after loading my save made it clear that I had no idea what the frig I had been doing. It was a somewhat repetitive level that consisted of many corridors and rooms that looked the same, and I couldn't remember where I had come from and where I was supposed to be going. I'd forgotten much of the story from the first half of the game anyway, so I just restarted.
It was fun. Such a well-made game, from top to bottom. I remember the endless howls of rage over the cliffhanger ending, but knowing that the conclusion of the trilogy is a trip to Gamestop away softens the blow considerably. And for all the bitching about spending only about half the game as the Master Chief, I really enjoyed playing as the Arbiter. Oh, and I still really hate the fucking Flood.
So, with that game finally finished, I can now move on to Halo 3. I have managed to avoid spoilers for more than five years, so if any of you know what happens, so help me Grodd, you best keep it to yourself.
Coincidentally, Reddit is organizing a weekend-long return to Halo 3 multiplayer on Xbox Live this coming weekend. I've never actually played Halo online before, so I'm looking forward to participating.
That's it for this week. Enjoy the weekend, everyone, and watch out for the drop bears.
