Hey Kids, Comics! For 12/31/08

Welcome to the last HK,C! of 2008! Not a very big week for the ol' pull-list but there's at least one book that I was looking forward to that will be a guaranteed puick-up for the week.

Bold is what I will grab for sure.

Italics mean it's something I want, but won't necessarily pick it up right away.

Regular text indicates something that has caught my eye but is either too pricey to be reasonable, or I would only pick up as an impulse buy. More than likely I'll read it at some point but not own it.



THIS WEEK'S PULL-LIST

STAR WARS CLONE WARS TP VOL 02 CRASH COURSE (I have been buying the monthly but haven't committed to the digests just yet.)

LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #49 (Almost to the end. I've liked what I've read of Shooter's run and it's the first time I've actually collected a Legion book in years. Wonder if it will last past the reboot.)

FANTASTIC FOUR #562 (This is just good comics.)

And that would be all she wrote, folks. I hope you have a happy new year and a great Wednesday at the LCS.

Later!

mike

Four Years and Counting!

Four years ago I bit the bullet, registered with Blogger and posted this. The whole motivation for doing so was a kind of New Years resolution type thing where I had decided that a Blog would serve the purpose of keeping me in practice, writing-wise, possibly keep me in touch with the world wide web (which I had sort of unplugged from), and act as an online journal (something that I've never been able to successfully accomplish with pen and paper).

I never really had a solid plan or theme to operate under so the blog has wandered, often aimlessly, between journal, linkblog, pop culture commentary and the like. It tends to follow the ebb and flow of my own haphazard approach to my interests, so at least I can be happy that, if nothing else, the blog accurately reflects me and my personality.

Still, I'm trying to figure out what, if any, defining quality it may have and what I want to continue doing with it into the new year. I think its overall lack of focus is part of the reason why I have never really had a group of regular readers who visit the site and comment on the posts like other blogs. I mean, it's not like I'm a review or news or gossip blog that people make a point to visit. A destination site, like a digital big box store. The stuff I have been doing for the last four years has usually been pretty random, and often irregular, musings that do not serve the goal of community building very well. Not that that is the only reason I continue to post on the site, but there has always been an attraction to having more interactivity with Meanwhile... and that might be a motivation for tightening things up a bit this year. We'll see how it goes.

Community building aside, I would also like to do more reviews, so I may make a resolution this year to take that on. If you are a regular reader be sure to take me to task if I don't stick to that particular resolution. I've also toyed with and tried, in the past, to launch a new interview blog, which would get me back to doing something that I love. I spent so many years doing it that I feel a little strange now that I'm no longer in the loop. I've posted about it before and it is something that I am still interested in so it may be one of the things I try to tackle in 2009.

I think I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that, despite the 'problems' I list above, the biggest accomplishment I have made so far is the fact that I'm four years in and not completely balls-up bored of sitting down from time to time and posting something. It's a long time to keep coming back and doing this, especially without some format or umbrella to hide under when desperately seeking inspirado.

And, with that, I take my leave. Thanks to everyone who has visited in the past and, as I said in my first post, I hope it hasn't been a total snorefest. I raise a glass to four down and many more to come!

Cheers.

mike

Merry Christmas!

Hey Kids, Comics! For 12/24/08

It's a Christmas edition of HK,C! and I'm shocked and amazed to see that I'll be making the trip out to my LCS on Christmas Eve for a book or two (much to my family's chagrin, I'm sure).

Bold is what I will grab for sure.
Italics mean it's something I want, but won't necessarily pick it up right away.
Regular text indicates something that has caught my eye but is either too pricey to be reasonable, or I would only pick up as an impulse buy. More than likely I'll read it at some point but not own it.

INDIANA JONES & TOMB OF THE GODS #3 (OF 4) (FINALLY! I thought the next Indy adventure was going to be finding out what happened to this issue.)

MISTER X CONDEMNED #1 (OF 4) (Might be worth a peek.)

UMBRELLA ACADEMY DALLAS #2 (Haven't started the first issue yet but I really enjoyed Way and Ba's first effort and I don't want to get behind.)

BILLY BATSON AND THE MAGIC OF SHAZAM #3 (It's interesting having these kids books that aren't based on TV shows and Kunkle is doing a nice job on this series.)

FARSCAPE #1

That's it for this week. Have a great Wednesday and a freakin' sweet Christmas Eve, folks! Happy Holidays!

mike

Sometimes I Hate the WWW

Surfing around, whether it's on the WWW or on comment boards on iTunes and the like, I find myself shaking my head more often than not. We all knew that the art of communication was going the way of the Dodo, but the level of discourse and literary ability of most of these people actually scares me a little bit.

I know it's nothing you haven't seen or heard before if you've spent even 10 minutes on the web, I just wanted to pop on and say something so I don't seethe in private and get an ulcer or something.

Later!

mike

Wolverine: Origins

I didn't have great hopes for this movie but the trailer (as seen below) actually looks not too bad. Unless something else deters me, this trailer has at least made me want to catch this one on the big screen in May.



Later!

mike

Hey Kids, Comics! For 12/17/08

It feels like no time has passed since last week when I did this. Heck, I haven't even read half the books I picked up! Anyway, here is, as always, the legend:

Bold is what I will grab for sure.
Italics mean it's something I want, but won't necessarily pick it up right away.
Regular text indicates something that has caught my eye but is either too pricey to be reasonable, or I would only pick up as an impulse buy. More than likely I'll read it at some point but not own it.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #20 (I'm still, like, six issues behind on reading this title so no hurry on the new issue.)

HELLBLAZER #250 (Looking forward to seeing what Milligan can do on this book although Diggle will be missed.)

ROBIN #181 (Does Batman R.I.P. kill this book for me or does it go on to rise above the tie-in quagmire it has been in for 4 months.)

SPIRIT #24 (Love this book but still a few issues behind reading-wise.)

X-FILES #2 (OF 6) (This one's a no-brainer.)

MADMAN ATOMIC COMICS #12 (Still catching up but I am enjoying the series.)

That's it for this week. Have a great Wednesday, folks!

mike

Hey Kids, Comics! For 12/10/08

Missed last week but here's the pull-list for this week. The legend, as always, is as follows:

Bold is what I will grab for sure.
Italics mean it's something I want, but won't necessarily pick it up right away.
Regular text indicates something that has caught my eye but is either too pricey to be reasonable, or I would only pick up as an impulse buy.:






STAR WARS CLONE WARS #3 (OF 6) (I love the show and I'm enjoying the comic.)

AMBUSH BUG YEAR NONE #5 (OF 6) (Almost done.)

FINAL CRISIS #5 (OF 7) (Decided to can Secret Invasion and stick with the FC)

CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI 13 #8 (Still surprises me that I'm hooked on this book but it's great fun.)

COURTNEY CRUMRIN AND PRINCE OF NOWHERE (I grab anything Courtney Crumrin, no questions asked.)

And that's the list for Dec. 10, 2008. See you next week and have a great Wednesday!

mike

Tragedies of English Language Use

#3 in a continuing series.

The word for today is penultimate.

I was reading a review of The Dark Knight today over at DVD Talk and the reviewer made an incorrect word choice that I encounter often in print and in conversation, and it inspired me to post about it. Not that anyone is actually reading this, but at least I can say I did my part.

I'll quote the passage from the review:

"Headlined by a penultimate performance from the late Heath Ledger..."

See, it's a common mistake because it seems like the 'pen' prefix is emphasizing the 'ultimate' (as if it made it even more ultimate than before) but, in reality, the word means 'next to last' so its use here is wrong. I guess, in this context, it could be argued that Heath Ledger's ultimate performance was his subsequent suicide, but I'm pretty confident that this was not the writer's intent.

Yeah, I'm being a little cheeky.

Anyway, I kind of expect to see it coming from the odd blogger, board poster, or possibly a high school student, but I find it a little embarrassing when professional writers make this mistake. And it happens often enough that it gets me a little wrankled.

Coming up next time on Tragedies of English Language Use, the double negative, irregardless.

mike

Wish Fulfillment

If I had the money and the ability to, I would so totally go and see this.

And I was just telling Jen how I'd finally come to terms with the fact that Blur was over. After Gorillaz, Think Tank, and the The Good the Bad and the Queen, it was time to accept that the likelihood of Blur making another album together was iffy to nil. Graham leaving the band didn't kill them creatively, but it seemed like the desire to go on beyond their last three-man effort was gone.

Now, they reunite for a live show that I can't go to, probably the last time they'll do a live show, with Graham, no less.

*sigh*

mike

"Oh, Canada!"

What can I say, I'm embarrassed by the political situation in my country. Sure, it's a minority government and everybody hates the right wing, but forming a coalition between the Liberal and NDP parties? Now, bear in mind that this coalition would be led by the guy who was told he wouldn't be continuing as leader of the Liberal party after the last election, and that it is supported by the Bloc who, by nature, serves Quebec's own self-interests (and yet, strangely, is a national party), in the hopes of toppling the democratically elected Conservative party and current Prime Minister.

And all of this just 7 weeks after we had an election. What is this, 4 or 5 in the last six years?

And people call American's crazy.

Update: I just caught this quote from Jack Layton on Google News:

"I cannot have confidence in a prime minister who would throw the locks on the door of this place, knowing that he's about to lose a vote in the House of Commons. That's denying about as fundamental a right as one has in a democracy."

What an ass. Yeah, and creating a party, deposing the current leader, and installing yourself as the Big Kahuna are what the principles of Democracy are based on. These guys all behave like children on the Hill (and I'm including everyone here, not just the folks I don't like) and I just want to shake my head any time I see them speak on any 'issues'.

And never let it be said that the NDP would ever turn down an idea that would get them closer to the power they could never attain on their own.

If they manage to knock the Conservatives out, bully for them. If they have the stuff to solve our country's problems I'm all for it! But 38% of Canadians did vote for Harper's tories while none of the other parties, individually, managed to top that so, if they want to form a new coalition party, they should have another election and see if the remaining 62% of Canada rallies behind them. That seems fair to me. Not just slip in and start playing house under the assumption that if you didn't vote Conservative you clearly would have voted for the Coalition, especially with Dion at the helm.

There is a reason the Liberals have been failing to get the kind of support they need outside of Ontario and Montreal. They spent 16 years in power getting fat, lazy, and cocking it up more often than they got it right. I would gladly vote for them again if they came off as gave a little less lip service and stopped blowing smoke up my ass.

Update 2: Just caught this from Layton also said his party expects to vote against the government at the earliest opportunity.

Don't you even want to see the budget, Jack?

I also point you to this article from The National Post. I find this a bit disturbing:

Although only two parties have signed this accord, the coalition cannot survive without the support of the Bloc Quebecois. The Bloc negotiated a permanent consultation mechanism and will have veto power over any major initiative, including he budget and all measures it deems of interest to Quebec.

mike

"Oh, the Horror!"

Got home from work Wednesday night, poured myself a glass of Coke and sat down at the computer to check my e-mails and what-not. Jen is sitting behind me working on her laptop and we're talking, happy sounds are steadily pumping out of the iTunes. For all intents and purposes, a pretty decent and calm evening home after work with the wife and kids.

Then I go and smack my Coke glass with my hand, firing caramel coloured liquid sugar all over a bunch of DVDs and CDs that sit next to my computer desk.

About an hour-and-a-half later, I've cleaned up the mess with only a few minor, but significant, casualties. The Coke came off of everything without problem except for my David Bowie Black Tie, White Noise collector's set, and there was a minor smudge left on my limited edition White Limousine disc by Duncan Sheik. Two of my Buffy sets suffered some minor damage (of the so sticky it peeled variety) and the slipcase to an X-Files: Mythology set was stained as a result (brown Coke, white case).

All-in-all I got off pretty easy, despite the stuff getting absolutely freakin' everywhere. I'm still a bit emotionally spent by the whole ordeal, but I'm not freaking out, as my wife pointed out, so that's a good thing. We'll see how I cope in the days and months to come.

Later!

mike

Event Fatigue

Like many others, I'm experiencing what folks are calling "event fatigue". With Marvel and DC running major events back to back where the stakes are always universe shattering and the repercussions semi-permanent, even a person who doesn't read every tie-in or tertiary title (heck, even if they don't read the main title) seems to be suffering from burn-out. It's like exhaustion by proximity. The two current events, Final Crisis and Secret Invasion, I thought I would give a try: the first because it is/was supposed to be the big finale to a string of crises, and the latter because it looks kind of fun, if maybe a little drawn-out.

In the beginning, I thought I was going to give up on FC because the storytelling was so opaque, and the stuff Morrison was constantly referencing were things I don't think I was in on. Granted, I didn't read 52, Seven Soldiers of Victory or Countdown before picking up FC #1, so I think that had a lot to do with the alienation I felt. Secret Invasion, on the other hand, looked like another Secret Wars to me. Big event, a whole bunch of Marvel characters fighting each other but not like in Civil War where it was all doom and gloom, this one promised to be fun. Finding out who is/was a skrull, how deeply they had infiltrated the Marvel U and discovering why they had targeted 'us' sounded like an interesting plot line to follow. After the third or fourth issue, however, I realized that Bendis essentially crafted an 8-issue slugfest with some exposition in-between characters punching each other. To its credit, Leinil Yu's art is great and likely the reason I hung on for as long as I did, but I think I only bought three issues.

Somewhere in the middle of all that brouhaha, I grabbed a copy of the FC#1 Director's Cut with the Morrison annotations and script pages. I also read an extensive interview (I think on IGN) where he talked about his Batman R.I.P. storyline and what he's trying to do with FC as a storyteller. These two things essentially showed me that I was reading the books wrong and, to their credit, they were right. FC is unwieldy at the best of times, but the way Morrison has paced this event's central book is different than your average super-hero comic book story. He's chosen to show the reader just the big moments of the story and not many of the interstitial moments that you would normally get in a 22 page comic. It was jarring for me early on, but I've got the rhythm now, I think.

I have since tracked back and read Batman R.I.P., 52, Seven Soldiers of Victory as well as the first book of Countdown, and I'm starting to get more out of the series than I did previously. Seven Soldiers especially seems to have some ties to FC what with the Mister Miracle connection and the red skies and Frankenstein of S.H.A.D.E. making an appearance in #3. There are still things I'm mulling over, but that's sort of the point, isn't it? Grant wants us humming and hawing until the last frame of the last page of the series. At this point I think I'm okay with that. Batman R.I.P. may have had a crap payoff in the end, but I think Grant will actually pull something out of his hat with FC so I'm going to hang in there and see.

Later!

mike

Hey Kids, Comics! For 11/26/08

Another pull-list for the week. The legend, as always, is as follows:

Bold is what I will grab for sure.
Italics mean it's something I want, but won't necessarily pick it up right away.
Regular text indicates something that has caught my eye but is either too pricey to be reasonable, or I would only pick up as an impulse buy.






UMBRELLA ACADEMY DALLAS #1 GABRIEL BA CVR (Been waiting for this one!)

BATMAN #681 RIP (Having read but not purchased the previous issues, I would like to see how it all ends. Still, this event has been pretty lackluster from the beginning so I am not expecting much.)

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #19 (I still like this series but the need to have every issue as it comes out is dwindling.)

LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #48 (Almost done. Just counting down to 50.)

Have a great Wednesday, folks!

Cheers!

mike

It's Like I Made It Happen

Did anybody else see Coldplay on the AMAs last night? What was up with that performance? I got the impression that everyone was having some trouble with their audio but Chris Martin looks drunk and out of key, nobody seems to be entirely in time, and the audio mix is just awful. Observe:

Lovers in Japan AMA Live
by yardie4lifever2

I've seen them do this song on several different occasions (via YouTube, of course) and it has never been quite this odd. Here's another version. Not perfect but quite a bit better:



Considering how I was just slamming the guys for looking and acting like goofballs, I feel as though I may have willed this to happen just to prove my point to the world.

The argument for not having anything to do with the band visually keeps getting stronger and stronger.

Cheers.

mike

Monday Morning, 11:53 A.M.

Flipping through some of my podcast subscriptions I noticed that I had downloaded a Barnes & Noble One-On-One interview with Paul Simon. I guess he is on tour promoting the new Lyrics 1964-2008 book that presents the lyrics for every song for that he wrote for that time period. Since I like listening to interviews while I work, I hit play.

The next hour was a relatively enjoyable one with Simon talking less about his book and giving listeners more of a trip through his early career and songwriting process. I always find it interesting how older artists can ride both sides of the fence when talking about music. They touch on the whole "I don't know where it comes from" idea but they can also intellectualize it like nobody's business. Listening to Simon talk about how the second you hit your first chord while writing a song you've already committed yourself to a certain pattern. The first note you sing will inevitably be a note within that chord and it will also affect your word choice when you write the lyric.

In some respects, breaking it down like that might be a bit of an artistic killjoy, but I love the insight it gives me as a non-musician and, really, I don't think it takes any of the 'mystical' aspects of songwriting away.

I've always been a listener of Simon & Garfunkel but never really gone through their catalogue beyond the Greatest Hits album that everyone has and the odd non-single track here and there. So, I've decided to do some proper exploring and have gone back to Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. and will be working my way up through the years until I hit Bridge Over Troubled Waters. As of this writing, I'm actually a little surprised by the religious content in many of the songs (although I would assume for folk music at that time having a song like "Go Tell It On The Mountain" was nothing unusual) but I have singled out "Bleeker Street" as a fast favourite and find that I prefer the non-electric version of "Sounds of Silence" over the second, better known, version the label released.

Anyway, I highly recommend checking out the interview which can be found here, and I'll post a follow-up on the music when I get a little further in.

Cheers!

mike

Next Trek

Not entirely sure how I feel about this:



But it seems to be generating more positive responses than I expected it to, initially, so I'm intrigued as to how this will play out for the franchise.

Anybody have any opinions on this one?

mike

What's Up With Chris Martin?

Jen bought me the latest Coldplay album for my Birthday in September and I had a lukewarm reaction to it at the time. There were definitely songs on there I liked a lot, and it was a definite improvement over X&Y, but it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I really embraced it sort of put it into regular rotation on my iTunes while I'm working.

Around the same time that was happening, iTunes offered a free download of their new video, "Lovers in Japan". I like the song so I snagged the video and hoped it would be better than the previous two which I had difficulty watching. Of course, it wasn't. I don't know what's up with Chris Martin and the other guys but the look they've chosen for this album is not working for them. I know it's supposed to fit into the French Revolution theme of the album but they just come off as total poseurs. And the stuff they have them doing in the videos is 20 steps back from the minimalist brilliance that was "Yellow", or anywhere near as conceptually strong as "The Scientist".

I've finally come to the conclusion that, while I have decided to let Coldplay back into my life, I just can't look at them anymore. Chris, you're not Bono so stop trying to be him. And find something less silly to wear.

Here's the offending video, by the way:



Later.

mike

Hey Kids, Comics! For 11/19/08

Another pull-list for the week. The legend, as always, is as follows:

Bold is what I will grab for sure.
Italics mean it's something I want, but won't necessarily pick it up right away.
Regular text indicates something that has caught my eye but is either too pricy to be reasonable, or I would only pick up as an impulse buy.










AMBUSH BUG YEAR NONE #4 (OF 6) (In for a penny, in for a pound)

ROBIN #180 (Starting to lose interest with all this event tie-in stuff, but hanging in there for the time being)

SPIRIT #23 (I'm glad that I'll be able to stay home and read these when that abomination of a film finally comes out)

X-FILES #1 (OF 6) (I've been waiting for this puppy for a looong time)

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #578 (The cover was enough to suck me in on this one, and I'm dying to see Martin's take on Spidey)

FANTASTIC FOUR #561 (This remains an enjoyable ride)

ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #14 (I'm still missing Franco Urru on this book)

Have a great Wednesday, folks!

Cheers!

mike

Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead

The cover art has been released for Indy's latest literary adventure to be written by Steve Perry and looks like so:



Not as cool as the Drew Struzan covers from the previous 12 books, but if the stuff inside is half-decent I can't complain.

mike