Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Total sellout

If you have read one or two of the latest posts you may have noticed that something has changed on this blog. Yes, I have sold out.


Well, not completely. On Monday my brother was nagging again if I get some money from all the links I posted so I filled out an application for a partnership with amazon and Today I got the green light. So I spent the whole day going over my old posts and adding amazon links so you can get stuff directly through this blog. But don´t worry. It´s not like I put in a link for every comic I mentioned. I have put links to amazon before. The only difference is that now I get some of that money my readers will spend when they follow the links on this blog.

Which means that at the current readership I should receive the first amazon shopping certificate in four or five years. The weirdest thing is that amazon actually accepted my application. Wow.

Anyway, not only have I added some links - or rather replaced the old links with the new ones - but since I had to go over all my old posts I also added some Civil War banners and of course the ususal " new to the blog ? check this out " links. The banners because it may look strange if you have more than one post on a page but it is a clear sign that a post is finished. And it looks better if you have only one post.

I have also added some not - Civil War banners but I swear to keep the babefactor to a minimum since I know that some of my readers are very sensitive about that.


And I included the links at the end of each post because you never know from where somebody will land on your blog. They may find the main page but they also may land on some random post and maybe they´re more likely to check out the best of the best than the main page. I want to make this blog as reader friendly as I can.

So that´s what I did today till the computer died on me. The last hour the computer constantly froze and I had to restart several times but I wanted to at least finish the big KRABAT post in case I can do the follow up in the next few days. I have finally seen the new Krabat movie so if I post the link to the old post everything is ready.

Sometimes it´s a bit difficult to find an appropiate banner for a post but the thing I´m really lacking at the moment are clever quips or cool soundbites to post at the end. Well, I hope I will find some good ones in the next weeks.

I thought I would start with the solicitations today but on the other side I´m glad that I had to make a new announcement since there are a few things that I forgot to mention in my last post or that have come up rather recently.

Autistic child saved by Spider - Man

BANGKOK. In a really heroic effort as " Spider - Man " a firefighter in Thailand saved an autistic child from a window ledge.


On Monday a fire brigade in Thailand received the distress call of a school for handicapped children. An eight year old autistic child had suddenly gotten scared an had fled to an open window on the third floor.

The boy couldn´t be persuaded to come back till his mother mentioned his affection for comic book heroes.

This gave firefighter Sonchai Yoosabai an idea : he ran back to the fire station to get a Spider - Man costume he usually used during fire drills in schools - as soon as the boy saw Spider - Man he came down from the window ledge and ran into his arms with a big smile.

  • original article ( in german )


  • THEM OR US ! - next round


    There´s another article about DIE ODER WIR this time on the internet edition of the FAZ. I´m just posting the link since the translation of the last article was a b - word. I will do it if there are readers interested...aah, the sacrifices I make for my faithful followers. Anyway, what I find interesting is that while they accuse the magazine......well, of exactly what ? Treating an important subject of german society BEFORE it really got important ? Being able to predict the future ? Whatever is the case here : I wouldn´t berate others from such a moral high ground if I put up headlines that include the words " in the line of fire ( im Schussfeld ) " in an article related to a school massacre involving fire arms.

  • trash magazine under fire


  • And now for some comic related clips :

    Iron Man vs Bruce Lee

    You may have already seen this but you can just watch it again and again. I whish Transformers had been this cool.



    The Brave and the Bold - Terror on Dinosaur Island

    This is mostly for myself since this cartoon show hasn´t arrived in Germany yet. I don´t know much about it aside from the trailer I saw and which totally rocked ! Anyway, how can you go wrong with a title that includes the words " Dinosaur Island " ? The only downside is that it´s split into three parts.







    And that´s all for today. I probably won´t continue adding banners and links to the blog Tomorrow since Today was pretty exhausting. Maybe I can start with the fun called solicitations in my next post.


    New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN :

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  • Monday, March 30, 2009

    special movie edition

    I know I wanted to start the solicitation posts but first I wanted to mention a few things related to movies. Sometimes stuff just keeps piling up and I just want to do a post about it and be done. First up a bit of movie news :

    THE GOON

    I´ve already mentioned that there is going to be a Goon movie. But now there is the first image ( courtesy of aintitcoolnews ) and I wanted to share it.


    Even though I´m not familiar with the book it looks pretty amazing. Hey, I would like to read all good comic series but I´m on a tight budget as it is and have to drastically reduce my reading pile over the next months. But if Dark Horse or CrossCult wants to send me some free review copies - I´m there dude. And I could also use some issues of FABLES, WALKING DEAD and TORPEDO.

    WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

    One of the best known children´s books of all times must be Maurice Sendak´s WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. Even if you have never heard of - or don´t remember the name of - Maurice Sendak you have probably read this book.


    I remember back when I was in fifth or sixth grade I didn´t buy that many comics because I had no money. I didn´t have a job and I never got an allowance or any other money from my parents. So I was more into reading books from the library and since we didn´t have the library bus back then ( which is practically a small library on wheels ) and it was too far to go to Ludwigsburg I was stuck with the local library of Neckarweihingen.


    Now I have always been a fast reader and I have always read a lot. Reading five or six books in one week was pretty normal for me even back then. Which means that because there weren´t as many books in the local library I went through the sections at alarming speed. I started with the fantasy and science fiction section, then the crime section and then to the children´s books. I read everything they had from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the three detectives ( or ??? like normal people call them ), Astrid Lindgren, Mark Brandis and many more. When I transferred to the Gottlieb - Daimler - Realschule in Eglosheim I was really happy because I had already read EVERY book I was interested in from the local library.

    I had also read all the books of Maurice Sendak who´s known in europe like.....I guess Dr. Seuss in America. Anyway, while they´re all wonderful WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE has always been my favorite. Now there is a movie based on the book and here is the trailer that looks rather promising.





    So, I´ve watched some movies I wanted to write about. One I watched last weekend was

    SUNSHINE

    While at first I thought this could be an interesting movie because of the premise I lost all motivation for watching the movie once I heard it was done by the same director who fabricated the desaster of 28 DAYS ( that horror movie ).

    Not only did it have fast zombies which is an absolute no - no but the main character changes from absolute milksop and whiner to tough as nails Ueberrambo in the last fifteen minutes of the movie without any reason or explanation. But my brother thought the movie could be good in spite of the director. Boy, never did it hurt more to be right. Because SUNSHINE also sucks.


    That movie is so gay - and I don´t mean that in a good way. Right from the beginning when I saw the ugly face of the main character fill the screen I thought to myself : What an ugly face. I bet he´s an a$$h()le. He better not be the hero.

    What can I say ? He was. Now you might say that I´m dismissing a movie because I decided to hate this guy right from the beginning. Which is true but there are more reasosn why the movie is bad. First up, if you send seven people to reignite the sun is it really intelligent that only one of them knows how to arm the explosive device ? What if something happens to him ? Sorry, never thought of that. Goodbye humanity, my bad. Who came up with that ? Homer Simpson ?


    And even if I can believe that how comes that guy is on the first space mission that kills the captain ? The rest of the movie they treat him like he´s the only guy which is really important - which you can believe if he´s the only one who can actually reignite the sun - but he´s on the first outdoor mission that costs the captain´s life. They do a total 180 degree turn on this.

    First they want to get rid of him than they would rather die themselves so he can live. And why was the captain on the mission anyway ? Doesn´t he have guys for that ? This isn´t Star Trek and he´s not Kirk.


    And to top it all off we have another finale where everybody else is dead ( the ugly faced dude of course dies last ) and our hero - well, the hero of the movie - mans up and transforms from absolute milksop to Ueberrambo......throwing the little bit of suspension of disbelief we still had rrrright out the window. So sometimes you have to trust your instincts. When you think it sucks sometimes it does suck.

    THERE WILL BE BLOOD

    And sometimes you´re totally wrong. I thought THERE WILL BE BLOOD would be another of this boring movies full of drama.


    There are people out there who don´t have enough problems in their personal lives - like movie critics I guess - and who like to watch movies with a lot of drama to compensate for that. Like people who didn´t get beat up enough as a kid become wrestlers. And since it was nominated for a gazillion Oscars I thought this would be another of those drama overdose movies.

    But THERE WILL BE BLOOD is a terriffic movie. And what´s even better : it´s a comedy ! I´m always complaining that my brother only gets movies with lots of drama and no comedies. Well, not this time. And don´t let anybody bs you about this movie not being a comedy. It has a really slow beginning and needs a lot of build up - but the punchline is priceless. Really, the finale is great. I was laughing my ass off. Watch this movie. Really.



    I also finally got to watch the KRABAT movie but that will be a longer post. So since FRINGE and LOST are on tv and I probably won´t get to post till tomorrow ( I also have to eat at some point ) that´s all for now.


    One last thing. Since I have already mentioned Kirk and I´m doing recommendations you should get William Shatner´s album HAS BEEN. I´ve mentioned it before but I can´t pimp it enough. I know it sounds weird ( william Shatner doing an album ) but trust me on this. It may be the best album you ever heard.

    New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN :

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  • Thursday, March 26, 2009

    THEM OR US - the next scandal

    At the end of last month I wrote a post about the problems Karl Nagel was facing with the first issue of his new comic magazine DIE ODER WIR because a lot of newsstands refused to put it on display. The main reason was the cover that showed a student pointing a gun at a teacher.


    At that time I wrote : Okay, not the most tame cover image but I have seen worse on some comics or magazines. It is a current topic and where will this all end when we can´t even treat these subjects ? Ignoring it won´t help to solve the problem. Maybe Germany only wants comics that are afraid to stick the finger where it hurts.

    Well, at that time I didn´t know how important this topic would become. For all those who don´t know on March the 11th 17 year old Tim K. went to his former school the Albertville - Realschule in Winnenden wearing black combat gear and carrying his father´s beretta and 200 bullets of ammunition. Three hours later he shot himself after killing 15 people.

    So of course the media was all over this turning it into the usual media circus. Newspapers seemed to have a competition going on about who could come up with the bloddthirstiest headline, there were constant updates on the tv news with specials and all kind of discussions. The paparazzis were out of control and in one case even tried to get pictures of the bodies right at the funeral home. Naturally everybody was using this for his own agenda and politicians were no exception.


    This is not the first time something like this has happened in Germany and like usual nobody is really interested in finding the real reasons behind it. All politicians want is a scapegoat to pin this on, some new laws and good publicity to get re - elected. The first thing they always go for are the internet, killer games on the consoles and of course violent movies.

    The fact that we have increasing cases of students going on a killing spree the more censorship we put on comics, games and movies is of course ignored by everybody. Germany is one of the countries with the most censorship and still they want more. But like I said nobody wants to really solve the problems. Just find something you can pin it on, make a name for yourself and then forget about it.

    And one of the targets of these new witchhunts is sadly DIE ODER WIR. Even before this happened there was an open investigation against the magazine but now it could land on the index for youth endangering reading material. Doesn´t sound so bad. The youth should be protected. The only problem is that in this case youth means from the age of zero to 100 and beyond. Because once a magazine or comic is on the index the restrictions also apply to adults.


    Because in Germany the law acts from the principle that it also has to be forbidden for adults because youths could get it from them - don´t ask me how. So the index for youth endangering reading material is in reality the index of stuff the german government doesn´t want its citizens to read. But by saying it´s endangering to youths it sounds like they are providing a service for the society instead of taking away the civil rights of their citizens.

    And in this light the first issue of DIE ODER WIR is in the news again because the german magazine DER SPIEGEL ( the mirror ) published an online article that glorified the illegal refusal of the distributors to distribute and to display the magazine as an act of heroism. There´s an old saying that any publicity is good publicity but I´m not so sure if that´s true in this case. For all my readers who have problems reading german here´s a translation of the article from SPIEGEL online :

    Killing Spree comic leads to controversy

    by Christian Fuchs

    Because of the catastrophe of Winnenden a media dispute has become up to date : the press distributors refuse to distribute a violence - comic. Is the sanction justified or a case of censorship ? After all it´s a teacher and not a student who goes on a rampage in the comic.


    Do bloody video games or splatter - comics influence young people´s readiness for violence ? After the killing spree of Winnenden there are new discussions about this. If the answer is yes then a sanction of the magazine distributores seems almost prophetic.

    At the end of February the magazine distributors enacted a boycott of the comic magazine DIE ODER WIR refusing to display the comic. An internal investigation through an attorney´s office from Munich had the result that the magazine was classified as " not apt for free delivery ". Lawyer Karl Ulrich Witte deemed the " excessive depiction of violence " in one of the stories in the comic as " strongly endangering to youths ".

    In the comic " Enough for Today " a teacher is going on a killing spree for twelve pages in the Berthold - Brecht - University because of the constant mobbing by his colleagues. The story reminds us of the school massaker of Erfurt that took place seven years ago - and now again of Winnenden.


    The magazine distributor´s boycott was almost a nationwide sales stop because all 58 magazine wholesale companies in Germany followed the advice to not deliver the comic to newsstands and supermarkets.

    Plagued by controversy

    The distribution - stop was risky because the magazine had not been officially indexed ( sorry, there´s no better word in the english language - I wonder why ) by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons in Bonn. Until Friday of last week there has been no request for indexing. The German Journalist Organisation ( Deutscher Journalisten Verband DJV ) critizised the distributors for their conduct. Economic associations are not allowed to make decisions about the content. Hendrik Zörner from the DJV called this " a form of censorship ".

    Part of the print run had to be destroyed. Meanwhile the publisher from Hamburg Karl Nagel offers the comic as a download via his website for 99 cents and renounces accusations that his comic is a blueprint for violence : " Then you could take The Sorrows of young Werther ( famous book by german author Goethe about a young man´s suicide ) as an incitement to suicide. " says Nagel.


    The authors were not interested in the killing spree but rather in the intellectual exercise : what would happen if there was a teacher under the mask instead of a student ? " Because of that our story is not suitable as an example for students because here it´s the teacher who goes on a rampage. " Since last week the disrtict attorney´s office of Bremen investigates because of suspicion of glorification of violence against Nagel.

    The magazine distributors were already critiqued in 2004 for distributing the art magazine " Steinstrasse 11 " with a restricted sale recommendation because of pornographic parodies of Donald Duck.

  • the original german version of the article


  • And that´s all for today. I could go on and on but I´m not so sure if a discussion about the real problems young students face today is really that interesting for my readers. Next on this blog : another round of my popular solicitation monologues. I want to increase the post frequency although I was pretty good the last few days. I mean I didn´t post on Tuesday and Wednesday but I did two posts on Monday and one of them was really long. So an average of 4 posts in 5 days is not so bad.


    New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN :

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  • Monday, March 23, 2009

    Tripping the rift

    I should have probably posted this on Thursday but it´s one of the things I totally forgot. The animated cartoon show TRIPPING THE RIFT has finally found it´s way to Germany.


    Thanks to DMAX this show has finally made it to german tv screens. To celebrate the start of the tv show they showed two episodes on Friday, two episodes on Saturday and two episodes on Sunday. Which means that either you have already seen it or if you haven´t you have already missed the first six episodes. But it will be aired on Sundays from now on ( at 23.15 hours showing two half hour episodes ) so you can still watch the rest.


    Now what is it all about ? Tripping the Rift is from the guys behind the Simpsons and the half hour episodes are the adventures of the crew of the starship Jupiter 42. Chode is the three - eyed blobby purple alien captain whose insatiable sexual appetite and very un - sugarcoated dialogue provides the lowest point of the show’s maturity, but also the funniest. Pleasure droid Six offers the brains and the looks behind their operations and is usually the target of gratuitous sexual references.


    The gay robot Gus manages a few laughs here and there, and both the hideous bovine alien T’nuk and wimpy lizard Whip generally just get annoying. Main villain Darph Bobo ( a clown - like Vader knock off ) doesn’t always impress, but he has his moments.


    Tripping the Rift has always had a cult following for its creative parodies of sci-fi favorites coupled with brazen language and generous doses of sexual deviance. The major appeal of the TV show lies in the edgy quips and ludicrous parodies ( along with frequent hints of nudity from the unnaturally jiggly female android Six ) which is the reason I know something about this show at all.


    Longtime readers may remember a time when I still had one blog and on one post about hot sci fi babes I was asking my readers about a picture of Six that I had found on the internet. Thankfully one of my readers knew about the show and pointed me into the right direction. So I think since everything I wrote is now on another blog I should post it here. At that time I decided to transfer it to the other blog because it was not comic related but since it´s now broadcast on german tv and it is connected to the Simpsons ( and you can´t have enough hot comic related babes on a blog ) here´s more info about the main attraction of the show : Android Six.


    Six of One / Six of Nine ( or just Six ) - Six is a sexy android ( though she is usually referred to, incorrectly, as a cyborg in the show ) that was designed as a sex slave. She acts as the ship's science officer, thanks to a programming upgrade by Chode; much to his chagrin, this upgrade has also given her a conscience and sense of decency ( in spite of her sexual nature ). She often gets the crew out of trouble by using her erotic attributes. Six's name is a parody of Star Trek : Voyager 's Seven of Nine, and the phrase " Six of One, Half a Dozen of the other. "


    Six's character is also a parody of Zev the Love Slave from the Canadian Sci-fi series Lexx. Her name is also a parody of 69 - a sexual position. The final episode of the second season revealed that she was modeled after a stripper named " Half a Dozen ".



    Although both Patricia Beckmann and Terry Farrell were listed in the credits of the pilot as Six of One, a small pamphlet included in the Season 1 DVD Box set listed her name as Six of Nine.


    Her voice was done by Patricia Beckmann and Terry Farrell in the pilot ( two versions ), Gina Gershon in season 1, Baywatch star and five time PLAYBOY girl Carmen Electra in season 2 and Playmate of the Month of October1993 and Playmate of the Year 1994 Jenny McCarthy in season 3.


    And for more on such baywatchable babes like Erika Eleniak ( who is of course most famous for her incredibly steamy striptease in UNDER SIEGE ), Krista Allen ( best remembered for getting her freak on as french blow up sex doll EMANUELLE in 8 made for tv movies ) or natural born go go dancer Carmen Elektra check out my latest BAYWATCH SPIN - OFF POSTS.


    Six Character profile :


    Six, voiced by Carmen Electra on the Sci Fi Channel's Tripping The Rift, is the hottest, sexiest and most advanced android ever created.


    The science officer of starship Jupiter 42, she's designed to have more sex than a dorm full of college freshman. Her programming enables her to fake more than 2,000 types of orgasms in more than 600 languages. Though she is smart enough not to have to resort to innuendos or lewd come - ons as the solution to every dilemma, it is a testament to her seductive prowess that she manages to copulate her way out of trouble as often as she does.
    Her pleasures are countless, but her dislikes include sand in her Vaseline and always being the smartest one on the ship. Her secret ambition is to be a science 'droid that has rockin' sex instead of a sexbot that knows how to spew technobabble.


    Twelve questions for Six

    1. What species makes the best lovers ?

    Six : The seven - holed Aurillian sex bunnies on Ejaculus 6.

    2. Have you ever had zero - gravity sex ?

    Six : Yes, but it's hard to go down when there is no down.


    3. Being a 'droid, do you have any unique sex tricks ?

    Six : I can detach my jaw to accommodate any size object.


    4. Are you good in bed ?

    Six : Yes, the bed, a counter top, floor, any flat surface really.


    5. What's the most unusual place you've had sex ?

    Six : Hopefully I haven't had it yet.


    6. Any nicknames for your girl parts ?

    Six : Fun chute, rocket launcher, whopper eater.


    7. What's your favorite sexual act ?

    Six : It begins with an " A " or my A, so to speak.


    8. Do you prefer giving oral sex, or receiving oral sex ?

    Six : I'm only programmed to give.


    9. What's your favorite part of the male anatomy ?

    Six : Any part I can reach with my tongue.


    10. Do you like to talk dirty while making love ?

    Six : I have four settings for that: a) Dirty talk, b) Really dirty talk, c) Locker room raunchy, and d) non - stop profanity.


    11. Ever have a three - or more - some ?

    Six : I once had a 17 - some at a Star Trek convention.

    12. What celebrity would you most like to have sex with ?

    Six : Woman: Pamela Anderson. Man: Hugh Hefner. Even though I have been programmed with over 200,000 sex " scenes " from four different galaxies, I'm sure I could learn something new from him.

    So you see how hot chicks can lead to awesome entertainment since I wouldn´t have known about the show with the hot picture. I´ve seen the first six episodes and it´s pretty funny and thanks to Six there are really hot situations even if you never get full nudity. Captain Chode is like a cross between Bender and a horny Guy Gardner and always looking for instant gratification. Here are some clips but you can find many more on youtube :











    For more about the show : official website / german website

    wikipedia entry / german wikipedia

    review of the show with an episode guide for the first season


    New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest