After the Final Season
For the last couple of years, I've been enjoying Joss Whedon's comic book follow-ons to the final seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel - Buffy Season Eight and Angel: After the Fall. Now comes a new one - Boom! Studios has released the first of the Farscape mini-series. The first issue begins where Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars ends, with Crichton and Aeryn Sun holding up their newborn as they look out at the cosmos. I was an occasional viewer of Farscape, always enjoying it when I saw it but never scheduling my life around it (unlike the Whedon shows), but I was a fan enough that I'm happy to see the storyline carried on. It looks like they're doing some number of 4-issue mini-series - no word on how many. Check it out!Labels: Comic Books, TV
eBay Auctions - I Has Some
So the great comic book giveaway I tried earlier last year really never made much progress, so I'm trying the eBay route after all. I've got 6 auctions out there that I just posted tonight - it'll be interesting to see if they go anywhere at all. All I really want is enough shipping cost to cover what it'll cost me - I don't care if I get nothing for the books themselves. If you're interested, look for:
Superman 79-84 (DC)
Way of the Rat 1-6 (Crossgen)
X-Men: The Early Year 3-8 (Marvel)
Wanted 1-2 (Image)
30 Days of Night: Beyond Barrow 1-3 (IDW)
XSE 1-4 (Marvel)
Hoping I get some takers...Labels: Comic Books
Lately...
Working too hard...
Lots 2 and 3 of my comic book giveaway are still available...
X-Files movie is pretty good...
She and Him at the Cradle Monday night was absolutely fan-damn-tastic...
The opening band was anything but...
McCain is really reaching in his attempts to go after Obama, but it'll get worse...
Senator Stephens looks like he might finally get the smackdown...
How's it going with you guys?
Labels: Comic Books, Movies, Music, Politics, Stuff
First Free Comic Book Offer Is Up!
I'm not going to cross-post all the time - just the first couple...
Go see Take My Comic Books! if you're interested.
Labels: Comic Books
The Dark Knight
Man, what a year for comic-based movies!! And I'll have to endanger whatever fanboy cred I might have by admitting that I was unable to get out to see Incredible Hulk or Wanted. But Iron Man, Hellboy 2 and now The Dark Knight are all three worth your time and money. The only other theatrical release I've had a chance to see recently was the 4th Indy movie and while it was enjoyable, the above three releases all blew it away. While The Dark Knight was arguably the better movie, I'd have a really hard time deciding which of the three I enjoyed more - suffice to say that all three of them rocked and their release on Blu-Ray later this year will be the impetus for me to buy a B-R player.
If you'e one of the 6 people that didn't see The Dark Knight this weekend, it really is all that. We were thinking about waiting and catching it next weekend but after finishing dinner at City Beverage we realized we had time to jet over to the Lumina at Southern Village for the 10pm showing. There was already a pretty good line (there's NEVER a line at the Lumina!) but we got in and managed to get pretty good seats.
I'm not going to bother describing the movie since every other media outlet in the world has already done so. Suffice it to say that Ledger really was as good as they say, Bale and Oldham did just fine, Eckhart was better than some of the reviews I've read have suggested and I never thought that I'd see the day that I missed Katie Holmes (Maggie Gyllenhall was pretty much a minor annoyance every time she was onscreen). Some of the folks with less screen time were awfully good as well, like Morgan Freeman, Eric Roberts and Michael Caine. And of course I loved the little glimpses of Chicago, like Navy Pier, the Chicago River bridges and the glimpses of Marina City, the Aon Center, 2 Pru and the Daley Center. And let us not forget making good use of the under-construction Trump Tower. Awesome!
(crossposted on Take My Comic Books!)
Labels: Comic Books, Movies
Brainstorm - I Has One
I've been struggling with what to do with the 5,400 or so comic books that I've collected over the past 25 years, that are now occupying over 15 long boxes in my home office, with another 25-30 coming in every month. There are probably a 1,500 or so that I have no intention of getting rid of, but the other 4K are just taking up space. I did give a jam-packed full long box to my nephew for his birthday a few years ago - a couple of years each of Avengers, Captain America and Fantastic Four - that was unfortunately lost in my sister's house fire last fall but I pretty much have every other book that I've ever bought.
A few years ago I could have sold a bunch of them to the local comic book store for 40-50% of their value in store credit, but I never got around to it and most shops aren't even buying anymore. I've looked into eBay and there are certainly a lot of comic sales going on there, but then I think about the hassle and time to grade each book (which is pretty subjective despite some well-accepted guidelines), photograph or scan then and post them on eBay, board-and-bag them then ship them out for probably no more than the shipping charges. Not worth my time. I've also thought about the comic marketplace function of comiccollectorlive.com, whose software I'm using to catalog everything, but that really doesn't reduce the hassle factor.
So while I was riding into work today I had a revelation. I don't want to just start throwing books in the trash without some attempt to find homes for them, but I don't want to spend a lot of time and effort and money making that attempt, so why not give them away via the Interwebs? My initial thinking is that I'll set up a blog specifically about the comics, list the books in lots on the blog a few at a time and on a first-come, first-serve basis send 'em out to first responders for the cost of shipping. No boards, no bags, just a padded envelope and US postage. If you're local, arrange to meet me and buy me a beer at Tyler's Taproom or Top of the Hill and they're yours. If there's no interest in a particular lot, then the landfill is probably the right place for them anyway. And I won't have to worry about some geekboy arguing that the Incredible Hulk #294 that I sold him as NM was only VF because of some microscopic chip out of the spine.
I've got some prep work to do (setting up the blog, doing some publicity, updating my PayPal account, checking on shipping costs) that will have to take a back seat to getting ready for the Meadowmont street fair (selling photography, not comics) but I ought to be ready to get going by late August, if not sooner. I've got some pretty good stuff that I'm willing to let go of, like the Grant Morrison runs of Doom Patrol and Animal Man, the Peter David run of the Hulk, other good stuff. The only titles that I'm pretty sure I'm not parting with are the X-titles, including my almost-complete run of New Mutants and some of the landmark 80s stuff like Dark Knight, Elektra:Assassin and the Watchmen. And Flaming Carrot - nobody gets the Flaming Carrot. Or the 4-issue Frank Miller Wolverine mini-series. But pretty much everything else will go, one way or another.
More soon!
Labels: Comic Books
Comics You Should Be Reading
While the Civil War rages in Marveldom, there are a few other titles that you should do yourself a favor and give a shot.
The first is Fell, written by Warren Ellis with artwork from Ben Templesmith (is the 30 Days of Night movie EVER coming out?). I can't do it justice by describing the work, so go to the link and see the first issue online. I will say that Ellis and Image are doing something admirable - trying to do an interesting comic and sell it for a third less than the going price. It's dark (as you'd expect from Templesmith) and gives you the feeling that Fell's Snowtown is quickly going the way of Samuel Delany's Bellona.
Also in the vein of dark urban drama is DMZ from Vertigo and Brian Wood. The first issue drops you right into a war-torn Manhattan and it takes a few issues for the backstory to develop - essentially with the US military (including the National Guard) fighting a number of wars on a number of continents, the militia movement strikes from Montana without a lot of opposition and moves across the country until northern New Jersey falls to the Free States with the US Army pulled back from foreign adventuring to the other side of the East River with Manhattan in between the standoff. There's a bit of Escape from New York to it but it's a lot less campy than John Carpenter. There's also a hell of a lot of Beirut, Sarajevo, Baghdad and other formerly modern cities where people try to live some kind of life and create some order out of chaos. This is definitely my favorite comic going right now.
I'm intrigued by but a bit less enthusiastic about Testament from Douglas Rushkoff. It intercuts biblical scenes with a modern retelling, with the elder gods looking on and trying to influence a different outcome. Lots of interesting concepts (as you'd expect from a cyberpunk and lecturer on media theory) but it doesn't work quite as well as it might have. However, it's a real different (and less female-driven) look at some of the themes in Alan Moore's Promethea. Worth a look.
All this is pretty serious stuff, so for some comic relief, there's another Warren Ellis out there that is funny as hell - Nextwave from Marvel. Made up of mostly forgotten Marvel characters like Captain Marvel (the Monica Rambeau version from late 80's Avengers), Boom-Boom from X-Force and Machine Man and a wonderfully over-the-top spoof of Nick Fury named Dirk Anger, it's all about kicking ass. And then exploding stuff. In fact, I'll quote Ellis:
"It’s an absolute distillation of the superhero genre. No plot lines, characters, emotions, nothing whatsoever. It’s people posing in the street for no good reason. It is people getting kicked, and then exploding. It is a pure comic book, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. And afterwards, they will explode."
It sounds like there's only going to be a dozen issues, so go buy it - you'll laugh. And then probably explode.
Labels: Comic Books
