Sunday, December 24, 2006

FELIZ NAVIDAD !

Although I have had a few free days this and last week I didn´t post much. My computer is on the fritz again which means I can´t burn any files on CD.


Of course this just had to happen when I finally decided to make some space and get rid of all old files. So now I have a lot of files on my computer and not much space left. I already tried everything from installing new drivers to deleting some non - essential files to setting the computer back to an earlier date. But like all problems with the computer I have no idea why it happened and most likely some day it will work again without any reason. I just hope I don´t loose all my pictures for this blog.

Now the other thing I did since my last post is catching up on my tv - series. I have watched the first two tapes of One Piece ( although almost all of the Navarrone adventure is missing ) all but two tapes of Naruto and the fourth season of 24. Which is just in time because next year RTL II is showing the fifth season. We got some DVDs to watch and yesterday we watched PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN - Dead man´s chest and FIREWALL. Today we watched MYTH with Jackie Chan and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III which was waaaay better than I have heard. Thank god I never pay much attention to movie critics. So now I have a little time for the big christmas post :

Happy holidays to all readers of TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN ! Christmas is just the best time to spread some comic goodness among the family and your loved ones. For me it has become a tradition to give only comics as christmas presents. And there are a lot of reasons for this.

First of all : Everyone loves comics. It´s a fact that while there are a lot of people who wouldn´t caught dead in a comicshop nobody wouldn´t read a comic if they had the chance. I never had the experience that somebody did not like comics. They just think they are too adult to read them. So if you give them a comic for christmas they could find out that there are comics that they could buy without feeling like a geek. Especially if it is a manga.

Reason number two : Most people don´t know very much about comics. Let´s face it. Your basic citizen doesn´t know the difference between WATCHMEN and YOUNGBLOOD. So it´s your job to get them the premium comic experience. Who knows, maybe they like it so much they ask you for more reading material. And you will have prevented that this person dies without ever having read one good comic in his life.

Reason number three : Ask the expert. Now I don´t know much about books. I have no idea who is hot on the bestseller list or who is the next Stephen King. I don´t know much about wine or ties or cigars. So I have no idea if what I buy would really be of top quality or just from the sweatshop in China. But what I DO know are comics. So I prefer to give a present where I really know that is is the best out there. And if they want more information or explanation I can give that too. I think that´s better than : " I have no idea. I just bought it in some shop. I hope it´s not total crap. " So pick your present in the category where you are the undisputed master. I mean, if they need to they can buy their socks, ties or cigars without you - and they will probably get better merchandise. So help them in getting what they don´t know they always wanted.

Reason number four : This will sound cheap but sometimes it is the best way to streamline your comic collection without loosing too much money. If you have a comic collection like mine there are a lot of comics that you bought but they weren´t as good as you thought. Now you can sell them again and lose a lot of money. Or you can give them away as a christmas present. I know, it sounds cheap but first of all : don´t take any old comic that you have already read a million times. The most important thing is that you take only comics that are in a premium condition. Secondly try to pick hardcovers over softcovers. There are surely a lot of items like this in your collection. If you are like me you will probably buy the new kingdom come trade even if you have all the individual issues because of the extra material. So if you have some redundacies in your collection you may already have some presents.

Or there are, like I said earlier, some comics in hardcover you paid good money for but which you only read ONE time and never looked at them again. Now, remember that even YOUNGBLOOD had fans so just because you don´t like it that doesn´t mean that somebody else will not like it and think it cool. Now before coming to the last point I just want to say that the best place to get comics for presents is at comic cons or comic fairs where you can get a lot of comics for half price or less. I always buy some comics to give away later and I always have four or five comics who I could give as presents. Because there are always people who pay you a surprise visit and I just love to see their faces when I can get them a christmas or birthday present in one or two minutes.

Now what comics to pick ? As a rule of thumb for non comic readers try to find a comic in a field of interest they already have and look for VERTIGO books or mangas first. Comicmuggels normally have a fear of superheroes and capes and they don´t think of mangas as comics. So try getting something else for the first time and when they have read the comic and trust your judgement you can go to the best part. Try to match their hobbies with you present like for crime fiction fans you can get 100 BULLETS or CASE CLOSED. If they have seen movies like Spider - Man, X - Men, V FOR VENDETTA, FROM HELL or SIN CITY and they have liked them get them the comics to show them that they are far better. With SIN CITY or HELLBOY it doesn´t really much matter which story you get but with X - Men or Spider - Man go for the best of the best like the DEATH OF PHOENIX storyline or KRAVEN´S LAST HUNT which has just come out again as a hardcover. If they like westerns you could go for DESPERADOS and if they liked PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN you could try CAZADOR from CROSSGEN. As an aside most comics of CrossGen had more female readers so if you are thinking about a present for a girl you might pick ROUTE 666 ( if she is a horror fan ) or MERIDIAN ( if she likes fantasy ) or SOJOURN ( if she liked LORD OF THE RINGS )with a female lead character. And if the person is a fan of tv shows like 24 or CSI or X - FILES they might not know that there is a comic to that show.

No comic reads for today. I hoped to be able to read some of the issues I saved for the holidays like SUPERMAN / BATMAN, EXILES or GREEN ARROW. But so far I had no luck. Anyway, best wishes to all and I hope I gave you some ideas for the next presents.

Merry Christmas !Fröhliche Weihnachten ! Feliz Navidad ! Bon Noel ! Happy Hannukah !


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    Wednesday, December 06, 2006

    Back to the mirror universe

    A while ago I posted about the ENTERPRISE episodes that took place in the mirror universe in a post called


  • vulcan booty and comic goodies


  • where I wrote about the hot women in the mirror universe in general and Tpol especially. Since I now found out how to post videos I wanted to post some I found the other week. The first one is about the two ENTERPRISE episodes including scenes from the hot catfight between Tpol and Hoshi.



    This second clip is about the hotness of the mirror universe babes from the first episode with Uhura through all following incarnations. I almost forgot the DS9 version. Makes you wonder what a SEVEN OF NINE mirror univers version would have looked like.



    Speaking of SEVEN OF NINE for me Jeri Ryan was the only reason I watched VOYAGER. If there was ever one reason to be assimilated by the borg is was to try to cyberdo it with SEVEN OF NINE. Sadly the producers of the show realized that she was too hot for television and tried to limit her sex appeal by changing her blue outfit to a darker brown that didn´t show her curves as good. Here is a clip with some highlights of SEVEN OF NINE from an otherwise lame tv series.



    But let´s not forget that this blog is mainly about comics and there is quite abacklog that I have to wade through. So let´s get right to it because I still have to do some christmas shopping. I mean if christmas was tomorrow I would have a present for everyone but I´m still looking for that special something.

    First of the comics I want to write about is STAN LEE MEETS DR. STRANGE one of four ( or was it five ) special one shots celebrating Marvel´s frontman by having him meets his creations. Even if I´m not sure if that is necessary or not any comic featuring Alan Davis is okay in my book. Especially if it is such wonderful art as in this one. Alan Davis is one of the few artists who despite incredible skills has not quite entered the superstar artist category despite decades of mindblowing artwork, not to mention his incredible writing skills. Like David Finch before NEW AVENGERS there still seems to be that ONE special project missing from Alan Davis career which might be the recently started FANTASTIC FOUR : THE END mini series. Hopefully !

    As much as I might whish for it Alan Davis is not the only artist in this issue which features three stories :

    The first one in which Stan gets to meet his creation ( come on that´s not spoiling - it says it right on the cover )written by Stan Lee himself is my favorite one although I found the story a little bit depressing. But you can´t argue with the Davis.


  • Stan Lee meets Dr.Strange


  • The second one written by Brian Michael Bendis and art by Mark Bagley is kind of a commentary about the criticism that Marvel has gotten over all the radical changes sweeping the Marvel Universe the last year. It seems a bit preachy at first but if you take a minute to think about it it does have a point. And we really don´t get to see the IMPOSSIBLE MAN as often as he deserves.

    After a two page sequence from MINI MARVELS ( one of the most funny and hilarious series from Marvel ) the last story is a reprint of MARVEL PREMIERE 3 written by Stan Lee with plot and pencils from Barry Windsor Smith as his best. The series MARVEL PREMIERE had really the broadest spectrum qualitywise which ranged from gems of the artform to really strange and experimental stuff. There also were some issues which contained comics that couldn´t get published anywhere else like the John Buscema drawn first issue of a SILVER SURFER series that was cancelled.

    All in all a really good package.


    Next is the ASTRO CITY SPECIAL. The first issue of ASTRO CITY : THE DARK AGES BOOK TWO miniseries is out so it is about time that I post my comments on this oneshot. There is not much to say about Kurt Busiek´s writing on this series or Brent Anderson´s art or Alex Ross´fine covers that hasn´t beeen said more eloquently before. This superhero series that leaves the mainstream far behind is already known to you or you are missing out on one of the best books this artform has to offer. Now I´m not sure if the story in the book has anything to do with the current ongoing story. It features Samaritan and the villain Infidel, who was drawn by Alex Ross for the WIZARD special DARK BOOK that was all about supervillains. Thanks to clamoring fans who kept asking for his appearance Kurt Busiek penned this selfcontained story. Unlike other, more mainstream books the meeting of Samaritan and Infidel was not at all what I expected but entertaining nonetheless. We also get the whole backstory of Infidel via flashback sequences. What makes ASTRO CITY so special is that it knows pretty well which parts it has to show us and which we can fill out ourselves because we have already seen them a gazillion times in other comics. I know that is not the actual cover I posted but I couldn´t find it and it´s a nice picture, isn´t it ?

    So thank you WIZARD for this one.


  • Astro City Special


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  • Live long and prosper !