Cover To Cover

This is just a sentimental favorite.Werewolf By Night #20,cover by Gil Kane.This may be the oldest issue of any comic I have owned from my original collection.I got this at Printer's Devil Bookshop in Middletown as a little kid and have held onto it since.It is the only issue of this series that I own,but I still hold it in high regard.Dated at August of 1974,it has a several year head start on most of the older books in my collection.

Organizing A Plan To Organize

I need to start reorganizing my Comics room.Here are some pics of the stuff I've got.




One of my display/book organizers.Bottom shelves are lined with Marvel Universe figures

 


Marv,the Hessian Horseman and a whole lot of Manga for me to catch up on.I don't traditionally like Manga,but Battle Royale is supposedly the stuff




Swamp Thing fell over.Gotta love The Trinity Bobblehead from Dexter.



Lonny Chant original Bat Symbol,and a airbrushed Punisher logo on Tshirt by my buddy Tony




Doctor Who figures

 



  

Signed Greg Horn Joe print from NY Comic Con 10.He used Purell immediatley after shaking my hand.

Great Poster from Doctor Who,found it on Amazon for 3 bucks!New!It's the TARDIS as painted by Van Gogh.To the bottom left is one of my all time favorite issues of Wolverine,The Man In The Pit by Jason Aaron.

A cool print of the last page from The Killing joke



More to come....

New Shitty DC Logo

7 years after the last logo change,and strangely like 8 months after relaunching their entire line,DC comics has decided to abandon it's swoosh style logo and replace it with this peelback style.The various designed versions will accompany different books and they will from all I can tell suck equally.

Another Bit of Muppet Goodness

Awesome song.

Jason F'ing Aaron

I just wanted to give due to one of the best young comic writers,no make that writers out there right now.Jason Aaron has worked his way from winning a Marvel contest in the last decade to being one of that company's head writers,while still doing incredible creator owned work elsewhere.

Yesterday I read PunisherMax #21 and Scalped #55,both by Aaron.One is obviously a Marvel book based on a 30 plus year old character,the other a creator owned book published by Vertigo.Both books are within 5 issues of concluding their respective runs,and both issues knocked me out.Both books featured the long awaited encounters between two characters who have been on a collision course for a long time.And each book featured two of the finest fight scenes I have seen in comics,a perfect interaction between writer and artist to convey the brutality that was going on.

I know it sounds funny that I'm raving about two issues that center around physical action,but if you read comics,I think you know how hard it can be to truly convey action.These books also were full of story beats that progressed the overall arc,and have me drooling for the next,and last issue of PunisherMax,and the next 5,and last 5 issues of Scalped.

Jason is also currently writing The Incredible Hulk,and the first four issues have been fantastic.I had a chance to meet him in NYC last year at Comic Con,and he was also a cool,genuine guy.I have met some real douche comic pros and he was not one.If you are looking to read some cool books,or read this blog and have any interest in hitting your local comic shop to see whats what,I suggest you look for some books by Jason Aaron,I don't know if you could go wrong.

The New New 52

I can't believe Green Arrow made the cut!

DC announced cancellations on 6 low selling titles and their replacements.It seems that the strategy is to have 52 ongoings and no more,so if 5 titles get cancelled,only 5 can be started.The 6 cancelled books are : OMAC, Mister Terrific, Static Shock, Men of War, Blackhawks and Hawk and Dove.I only read Terrific and have enjoyed it,but expected the ax eventually.I am curious to see any backlash with 2 of the books being half of the books starring an African American hero in the current DC universe(Terrific and Static,Batwing and Firestorm remain safe).

In the wake of this we get 6 new titles.

Batman,Inc-Grant Morrison's Bat series from the prior DC universe picks up again.

Earth 2-James Robinson's Justice Society book.

World's Finest-The Huntress is stranded on Earth 1 and trying to get back to Earth 2.Paul Levitz writes.

Ravagers-Howard Mackie writes a series spun out of Superboy.

Dial H-The old H for Hero concept reborn,under novelist China Mieville's pen.

GI Combat-A rotating war series,written by a rotating crew,featuring The Haunted Tank amongst other DC war properties.

So 6 months in and we get our first casualties,interesting to see what is next.

VH Mach 1

Closer to 60 than 20,28 years after their last album together,and this still rocks harder than any of the Van Hagar stuff.New album out next month,definetly a curiosity.

Musical Interlude:Blink 182

I have never been a huge Blink fan,but I got their new album Neighborhoods for Christmas and have been playing the hell out of it.Check it out,nice high energy power punk rock.

30 Second Movie Review:Pirates Of The Carribean:On Stranger Tides

I love the first three.Many People loved the simplicity of the first and felt the next two were too convoluted and long.Not me,I loved the many characters,mix of action and humor,and a grand sense of story.

I was disappointed when I heard they were making a fourth,mainly because I felt that they did such a good job that we could only go down from there.I am not against further adventures of Capt.Jack,but it is hard to maintain such a level of high quality.On Stranger Tides is proof of that.In no ways is it a bad movie,it is just a sub par movie compared to the absolute awesomeness that came first.Capt.J gets caught up in the search for the Fountain of Youth,and along the way hooks up with Penelope Cruz as a very uninteresting female character from Jack's past.That's her role in the film.The villain this time is Blackbeard,played by the great Ian Mcshane,who must find the Fountain or perish.This character is described in the script and even in history as maybe the most fierce pirate ever,and I can only imagine what Mcshane could have done with a better script,but here the character is fairly weak and leagues less menacing than Davy Jones or even Barbossa from the first film.We also get a watered down romance between two ancillary characters meant to evoke memories of the actually good love story between Will and Elizabeth from the first trilogy.

In the end Pirates 4 has some amusements,but nothing really memorable.3 stars based on fondness for the series,closer to a 2.5.

Snyder=Good Reading

I haven't had a chance to read Scott Snyder's run at the end of Detective Comics last year,but I do have them all and can't wait.The reason is that Snyder has been writing the relaunched Batman book and has caught my interest in 4 issues more than any writer has on the main Bat title in years.He has given Bruce Wayne,Batman and Gotham a powerful foe in the Court of Owls,a mysterious society behind the city's deepest darkest inner workings.The story has utilized all the aspects of a good Bat story at once,focusing on the detective work,sprinkling on some superheroics for good measure,and adding a truly creepy factor.When Batman discovers where the Court of Owls have been hiding for years and years,the hair stood up on my arms.Now the Bat,who himself relies on being an urban myth,must figure out what a foe who most think is just a macabre nursery rhyme,wants and why Bruce Wayne has been targeted for death by them.Great reading.

Muppets Goodness

Bret Mckenzie,one half of the great New Zealand folk duo Flight of the Conchords,wrote and arranged most of the new music for the new Muppets movie.Here is a bit of him and Kermit singing "Life's A Happy Song".