Rant Ramblings: Week of 3-15-13

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.

That's it for this week!

Rant Ramblings: Week of 3-8-13

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 City is 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!

Rant Ramblings: Week of 3-1-11

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!

Rant Ramblings: Week of 2-22-13

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.

That's it for this week!

Rant Ramblings: Week of 2-15-13

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.

Rant Ramblings: Week of 2-8-13

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!

Rant Ramblings: Week of 2-1-13

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.

NIGHTMARE ESCAPADE is free today!

My first book, Nightmare Escapade, is free today for the Kindle. If you lack a Kindle, have no fear! Amazon offers free Kindle apps for pretty much any device, possibly even including your old TI-35X calculator from high school. Go and get it, and leave a review!

Okay, can anyone tell me...

... exactly what the frig is wrong with the snowman on my Fun Dip package? Get a load of this weirdo!

Possessed, tripping balls, or imitating Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis from Beetlejuice? This is not an isolated occurrence; pictured in side is a snowman family with the same distended mouths and soulless eyes. Be thankful that I spared you that horror; consider that your Xmas miracle.

The tree is up!

I put my tree up a couple of days ago. I don't have much space, so it got stuck in the area between some shelves against one wall. Here it is, for your viewing pleasure.

Lots of Simpsons ornaments, as usual. A couple of Batman-related ones as well; those Brave and the Bold mini-figures convert to tree ornaments nicely. The bag of ornaments that included my Masters of the Universe ornaments has gone mysteriously missing, so no Skeletor or Mer-Man this year. Some lanterns representing the various factions in the Green Lantern universe were added once I realized their little handles made them perfect for hanging on the tree. Since Macho Man Randy Savage served as the tree topper last year, I gave the Nature Boy himself top billing this time around.

Here's a side shot in which a few more ornaments can be seen, including a Terminator endoskeleton peeking out.
Thanks to Cindy, I also have a nifty extension cord for the lights with a built-in floor switch. Sadly, my blue lights are in the bag with the missing ornaments, so I only have clear ones this year.
As usual, right click on the pics to embiggen them.

Rant Reflections: DC Comics February 2013 Solicitations

Like a lot of comic readers, I have the habit of reading through the solicits each month for the material that will be published a few months hence. This is a potentially ongoing feature I'm trying out; basically, it's a stream-of-consciousness commentary on what I see as I scroll down the page. Since it's stream-of-consciousness, any typos you spot are by design. Yeah, that's the ticket.
There's a lot to digest in DC's February 2013 solicitations, so let's dive right in!

Before Watchmen
These controversial series keep chugging along, with four of them-- Dr. Manhattan, Rorschach, Comedian, and Ozymandias-- ending their runs this month. A one-shot starring the ill-fated Dollar bill has been added, and it's illustrated by Steve Rude, to boot! It'll look pretty, if nothing else.

Justice League group
The Throne of Atlantis crossover wraps in Justice League and Aquaman; notably, no mention is made of the Shazam! backup, so Grodd only knows when we'll actually get to see the conclusion of that story. The new Justice League of America series launches with 52 variant covers, one for each state, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. Honestly, I rolled my eyes when this was announced; I don't really care about variant covers for the most part, and the number of variants Marvel has had for some of their recent series are, frankly, disgusting. However, DC is making all 52 covers easily ordered in any quantity retailers wish, without having to meet some sales threshold, as is the norm. With that in mind, I think it's a cool and fun idea. I'll probably pick up a copy of the Mississippi variant in spite of my dislike of David Finch's artwork. For the uber-obsessive collector, a pack of all 52 variants plus the standard cover is available for the low, low price of $149.99.
Green Arrow gets its fourth creative team since the relaunch, with Animal Man writer Jeff Lemire and I, Vampire artist Andrea Sorrentino coming aboard. Green Arrow is one of those characters I usually like, but I only follow his series when it's really good, and so far, the current series has not been nearly up to snuff. The DC relaunch last September did a lot of good, but it also did a good bit of damage to certain characters; Green Arrow is one of the characters who has been screwed over the most. He's been almost unrecognizable since the reboot, and the book has been bland at its best(not that it was great before the advent of the New 52!). There will hopefully be some new readers checking the series out because of the Arrow TV show, and if anyone can pull the book out of its nosedive and make it worth reading again, this team can.
The new ongoing series Katana and Vibe(Vibe!!) kick off. It's always nice to see another book with a female lead, and the New 52 version of Katana has been pretty interesting so far. Ann Nocenti has not wowed me with her DC work so far; her stint on Green Arrow did nothing but make me quickly drop the book again, and her Catwoman #0 was a bit of a mess. Still, I've read a few of her Daredevil issues, so I know she is a capable writer, so I'm cautiously optimistic about this. Vibe will likely have a bit of a rough road, as the character has long been the butt of many jokes in the DCU. Vibe is a break-dancing Hispanic character introduced during the Justice League Detroit era, itself a much-derided period in JL history. Still, co-writer Geoff Johns has proven himself very adept at redeeming previously discarded and mocked characters, and with Pete Woods providing the art, it'll at least look good.
The Flash wraps up its Gorilla Warfare storyline, which should be lots of fun, even though I'd be perfectly happy if the Flash fought superpowered gorillas in every issue. It seems that Orion will be part of the regular cast of Wonder Woman for a while, and that's okay with me! This has been one of the best books available since its launch, and it looks like it's only going to get better.
The Savage Hawkman is a book I dropped very quickly, and then stayed far, far away from as Rob Liefeld took over and did what Rob Liefeld does. With a new team installed, I'll check it out, but it'll have to endear itself to me very quickly to avoid getting axed once again. I read the first two Dan Jurgens issues of The Fury of Firestorm, and they were solid, if unremarkable, superhero comics. whether or not I'll still be reading in February, I don't know.
Arsenal gets a spotlight issue in DC Universe Presents. I almost give a fuck.
Earth 2 and Worlds' Finest are a pleasant one-two punch I look forward to the first week of every month, and that's no different here. Dr. Fate debuts? Awesome! Taking up plot threads from Mr. Terrific's disappearance? Fantastic!

Superman group
Grant Morrison's final issue of Action Comics ships this month, and that makes me sad. I'm sure it'll be awesome, but when he was first announced as the writer of this book, I was hoping we'd get a multi-year mega-epic like he gave us with Batman. Alas, it was not to be.
The rest of the books are mired in the H'El on Earth crossover, in which I have approximately zero interest.

Batman group
Speaking of Grant Morrison, his Batman Inc. only a few more issues to go. The cover art teases Batman and Robin against the Heretic, which will no doubt be a blast. We need to put our scientists to work cloning Morrison and Chris Burnham so we can keep getting such a goddamn awesome Batman book forever.
The currently-running and thoroughly awesome epic Death of the Family concludes in Batman. That cover fucking rules your face.
Talon is a pretty interesting book so far. The Gotham Ripper sounds vaguely familiar, so I'm wondering where I read the name before.
The Dark Knight continues its exploration of the Mad Hatter. I've been enjoying this series since Gregg Hurwitz took over as writer, but Ethan Van Sciver taking over the art is only going to improve it. I hope these two stay on the book for a while.
Check out this solicit for Batman and Robin: "Batman and Robin gear up to protect Gotham City in the week leading up to the 300th anniversary of the city’s founding!" Sounds fun to me! This is consistently one of the best superhero books out there, and yet it's the only Batman book I never hear anyone talking about. More people need to be reading it.
Detective Comics has been rockin' ever since John Layman and Jason Fabok took over. Looking forward to this storyline.
The current Batgirl series is a book I want to like more than I do. From the get-go, it's never been good enough that I actually look forward to it each month, but it's not bad or anything. I just never seem to enjoy it as much as I feel I should, and the recent addition of Ed Benes as the artist ain't helping. For all of that, I'm still looking forward to the book's involvement in Death of the Family, and the return of James Gordon Jr.
Batwoman fucking rules. It hit a bit of a rough patch during its second story arc, with the artist turnover and all, but it quickly reasserted itself as a goddamn amazing series. The current arc featuring Wonder Woman has been fantastic so far, and I'm looking forward to this issue's conclusion.
Like I said, the jury is still out on Ann Nocenti's run on Catwoman. We'll see.
Birds of Prey and Batwing are both middle-of-the-pack books that I usually enjoy, but don't love. I am looking forward to seeing what Fabien Nicieza has planned when he takes over Batwing, though.
Nightwing looks interesting this month, as Death of the Family seems as if it's going to be particularly rough on Dick.
Red Hood and the Outlaws has been pretty terrible from day one, but I suspect I'll have to check this issue out, since it promises Bruce confronting Jason in the aftermath of Death of the Family. That's something I wanna see.

The Green Lantern group is launching into another crossover, Wrath of the First Lantern, as soon as the current one ends, giving readers no breathing room whatsoever. Geoff Johns's work hasn't been as strong on GL the last couple of years, but I am still enjoying it; however, the books' near-constant state of MEGA CROSSOVER EVENT can get rather tiring.

The Dark group
Phantom Stranger has been a decent book so far, improving with each issue, so I am looking forward to this issue. Jae Lee's cover is fucking awesome.
Sword of Sorcery hasn't won me over yet, so I may no longer be reading when this issue ships. We'll see.
Rotworld wraps up in Animal Man and Swamp Thing. I really enjoy these two books every month, but the pacing on this storyline seems rather slow so far. Hopefully, business will have picked up considerably by the time these issues ship.
Dial H is another book I like, but don't love. I am looking forward to Alberto Ponticelli taking over the art, but this book needs to start engaging me more. Not sure if I'll still be getting it in February.
I'm still smarting from my beloved Frankenstein: Agent of SHADE getting cancelled, but at least Frank himself wlll be showing up in Justice League Dark. This book is a favorite month in and month out, and I really hope the creative team stays in place for a good long while.
The core concept of I, Vampire has been turned on its head recently, and it's been a lot of fun. Looking forward to seeing that play out.
I've enjoyed Robert Venditti's work on Valiant's X-O Manowar, although I do find it a little too "decompressed." That said, I am optimistic about him taking over Demon Knights, and I'm glad DC didn't cancel it, too.

The Edge group continues apace, with Team 7 writer Justin Jordan taking over Deathstroke as well, which means it's okay for me to give the latter title a try again. The first eight issues of Deathstroke were pretty fun, but it immediately became unreadable when Rob Liefeld (yeah, him again) took over.
Threshold is defnitely interesting, boasting stories featuring fan-favorite Larfleeze and Blue Beetle, as well as such obscure characters as the Space Cabbie! For all I know, the one-off story featuring the Cabbie in Starman over a decade ago is the last time that character was even mentioned in the pages of a comic. I honestly don't expect this title to survive for very long in today's marketplace, but I sure am glad that DC keeps taking chances on books like this.
All-Star Western looks amazing, as always, while Suicide Squad and Stormwatch are always unspectacular, but solid, reads.
With the cancellation of Blue Beetle, I read absolutely nothing from the Young Justice group of books. that entire category seems to be sliding down the tubes; one wonders what DC has planned to rejuvenate it.

The non-New 52 books have plenty to offer as well. I've enjoyed Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti's gradual Freedom Fighters revival in the form of miniseries tackling each character, so I'll be checking out Human Bomb. JSA Liberty Files: The Whistling Skull just looks cool as hell, and since I love the first two of those series so much, this on is a no-brainer. Joe Kubert Presents is a series I've looked forward to since it was announced earlier this year, but now the series also serves as a tribute/memorial for Kubert himself. I can think of no better tribute to the man than having some great comics published with his name on the cover.
The print collections of DC's digital first series are pretty nice packages too, offering a lot of bang for the buck. I get the ones I like digitally as they're released; I wonder exactly how it breaks down regarding the sales of the digital versions versus the later print compilations.

Collections
There are a slew of New 52 collections solicited; the one of most interest to me is All-Star Western Volume 2, and here I have to remind myself that i am still lacking volume 1. Beyond the New 52 stuff, there are some great collections coming, and I can only hope finances allow for me to get the ones I want. The must-haves are The Starman Omnibus Volume 3 in paperback format and Crisis On Multiple Earths Volume 6. Starman is probably my favorite superhero series of all time, and even though I have the complete run in single issues, I really want some nice collections I can easily pull off the shelf when I feel like re-reading some or all of it. I only managed to get the first two hardcover volumes, and a couple of those volumes are now out of print, so I'm left waiting for the paperback editions for the remaining four volumes. As for Crisis, the old Earth 1/Earth 2 JLA/JSA teamups are always fun to read, and unless I've figured it wrong, I think this volume will contain the last of them. Again, this also reminds me that I still don't have the previous volume. Money is just too damn tight for all the books I wanna buy.
The Jack Kirby Omnibus Volume 2 looks pretty awesome, as it reprints a good bit of Kirby Klassics that don't get a lot of love. It's the classic works that slip through the cracks that often really appeal to me, so I really wanna get my hands on this one, too.
Other notable collections: A new edition of Batman: Gotham By Gaslight which contains the titular Elseworlds story and its sequel, Master of the Future. These are both great fun, and this collection is about the same price as they cost originally, so it's a great deal, to boot. The victorian-era Batman featured in these stories has long been a favorite of mine, so it's nice to see them kept in print.
There's a new edition of DC Universe by Alan Moore, which now throws some of his work for the now-defunct Wildstorm imprint into the mix. Not a bad deal at $24.99.
We also have a collection of Day of Judgment, one of DC's events from the late '90s. It was pretty decent, but not great, although it did have the twist of making former Green Lantern Hal Jordan the Spectre for a few years. (That last until the powers-that-be at DC decided they wanted their Silver Age back.) The only reason I can think of for this being reprinted is that it was an early work by Geoff Johns. It's not a bad read; you could do worse for $15.
There are several Superman collections coming, some of them no doubt tie-ins to the upcoming Man of Steel movie. The Superman vs. Zod trade looks pretty cool, and I might check it out myself, but I urge you to avoid the execrable Reign of Doomsday at all costs. I love the Showcase Presents books, and the Superman Family volumes contain some great examples of true Silver Age comic insanity. Volume 4 is sure to continue in that tradition.
There's also the final trade of the Batman: Brave and the Bold comic, which was always great fun.
The Young Justice tie-in comic is cancelled, so that makes me wonder about the animated show's future, with it still on hiatus and all...
Of course, the biggest news with the Vertigo books is that Hellblazer is cancelled with its 300th issue so that DC can replace it with a Constantine book set in the DCU. It's a smart move from a purely business perspective, anhd Hellblazer has had a great run, so I can really begrudge them that. I will miss it, though. No matter how good the DCU Constantine book is, it just won't be the same. With American Vampire on hiatus, this leaves Vertigo with only a few ongoing series, so you really have to wonder what's going to happen here. The imprint really seems to be dwindling, and it's almost painful to see. This is the publishing imprint that brought us all-time classic such as Sandman, Morrison's Doom Patrol, WE3, Animal Man, Seaguy, and The Invisibles, Preacher, Transmetropolitan(yeah, it started out as part of another imprint, but the bulk of it was published as a Vertigo book), and many others. It's just sad to see it slowly withering like this.

Anyway, this has gotten much longer than I intended. If anyone has managed to hang on to the end, congratulations! You win juicy, gold-plated bragging rights.

Happy Halloween!

I hope you all have great big steaming piles of fun celebrating the best holiday of the year! Whether you have a party to attend, or you're taking some kids trick-or-treating, or just staying home and enjoying some classic horror movies or some spooky books(I humbly suggest my own book if you're stuck for something to read in that category), I hope you all stay safe and have a good time. As far as local events, Hattiesburg's first-ever Halloween parade was yesterday, so I hope you went if you were interested! Today, there is a Halloween-themed Free Comic Book Day event in which both local comic book stores are participating, and we'll be participating in that.
I've got one more thing to share with you that I came across this morning. This is a badass Joker-lantern carved by Andy Bergholtz, commissioned by DC Comics as part of their October spotlight on their supervillains.

Happy Halloween!