And this has been going for weeks - as you can see by the date from my last post. I guess we all know that Captain America week is over by now so really, time for a new post. But before totally closing the subject of Captain America, Comics Alliance has done another one of it´s great COMICS EVERYBODY post explaining the history of Captain America .
I´M LEAVING ON A JET PLANE I KNOW WHEN I´LL BE BACK AGAIN
Now you might ask what I have been so busy with, me being unemployed and all. Well, one of the things is my impending trip to Spain which has totally caught me by surprise. I had to finish a lot of things like books I had started to read or comics, tidy up my room a bit, watching the first season of HUMAN TARGET and basically doing my travel preparations.
Part of that was finally getting to watch episode 8 of the sixth season of DR. WHO " Let´s kill Hitler ! " and let me say this : just when you think this show has reached the epitome of greatness they one - up themselves. Here´s the trailer so you can judge for yourself :
Another part of my travel preparations was ( and still is ) finally posting all the bookmarks I had saved for future posts on my taskbar. As I´m going through them in reverse order I may post ones that will be at the bottom of this post first and the ones who will be at the top last. So it might look a bit awkward until this post is really finished. Yup, just when you had thought you had all my quirky posting habits worked out I go and add a new one.
One link I totally have to post ( mostly because I may have need of it myself later on ) is for the XII Jornadas de Cómic y Manga de Leganés which will take place at the 24th and 25th of September at La placa de España. I had no idea where Leganés is but apparently it´s near Madrid and you can see the location here .
I don´t know if I really can attend as I´m having a small travel expense budget and my mother´s not so keen on me going to comic conventions when I´m in Spain ( one of the reasons why she invited me over to Spain only AFTER the Salon del Comic de Barcelona, innit ? ), but I´m in the country at the time and if it´s possible I will visit the con. So far not many artists are confirmed but on the top of my list is Carlos Pacheco, as always. Maybe this time I can get a proper Power Girl drawing. And ask him who´s on his new X - Men team. In any case I´m taking my second copy of X - MEN SCHISM 1 with me when I´m going to Spain and with a bit of luck I´ll have it signed.
THERE MUST BE 52 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER
We´re heading of with DC´s new 52 book relaunch and first up, for all who missed it here´s an article from Robot 6 about the 52 commercial that´s really quite embarrassing and looks like something two stoned college students cobbled together in their basement - in the 80s.
Rolling Stone has an interview with Grant Morrison about the death of comics and I have to say that´s one topic that never seems to get old.
In April 2006, when I was just starting with this blog german magazine DER STERN prophesied " der death of comics " and now they have regular articles about comics themselves. I´m 44 years old and for as long as I can remember reading comics - from the age of 10 or 11 - everybody has always said that comics are dying. So, I´m not going to hold my breath till that happens because even IF it should really occur there´s still enough for me to read for as long as I live.
There is also another interview with Grant Morrison at Comics Alliance about his Batman megastory and his upcoming work on ACTION COMICS, one with Paul Levitz on his Legion of Super - Heroes books, one with Jeff Lemire about Animal Man, one with Yanick Paquette about Swamp Thing, one with Gail Simone about Batgirl and Firestorm, one with Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang about Wonder Woman and one with Geoff Johns and Jim Lee about Justice League.
And two new previews have been released for Justice League International 1 and Batman and Robin 1 .
I KISSED A SUPERGIRL AND I LIKED IT
Now I don´t know how trippy Grant Morrison´s new take on Superman will be but it can´t be as crazy as this Superman story from CBR´s I love you but you´re strange series about Golden Age Superman´s inappropiate sexual fixation on his cousin.
And this is not the only story from that time that goes in that direction, as I recall one story in particular where Superman tried to get Lois to stop hounding him with those damn wedding plans, by pretending to have found a superpowered girlfriend who in the end turend out to be Supergirl in disguise. Of course to convince Lois that this was his new girlfriend he had to make out with his own cousin and if the comics code wouldn´t have been in effect at that time who knows to which lengths the Man of Steel would have gone. Just to get rid of Lois of course. It´s not like he enjoys kissing his cousin or doing other things with her. Man, compared to that the new Superman books will be pretty tame, I guess.
And speaking about the new Superman I guess this costume starts looking really good compared to the new Robotech Superman outfit.
RETROACTIVE DREAMS
Since we´re riding the nostalgia wave and talking about old DC stories I have gotten a few issues of DC´s RETROACTIVE line and I have to say in some cases the reprint stories are better than the new stuff. Which is kind of embarassing and doesn´t bode well for the whole relaunch thing. I got the WONDER WOMAN 1980 issue but mostly for the reprint that has beautiful art by the late Gene Colan.
It seems this particular reprint was picked because it features the first appearance of Silver Swan, the antagonist of the new story but also because Wonder Woman changed her emblem in the issue. And as we all know DC comics is all about change. Be that as it may, seeing the reprint in nice color instead of the usual black and white of the reprinted material I buy, through Marvel´s ESSENTIALS or DC´s SHOWCASE edition makes me wish DC would do a new collected edition of Gene Colan´s run on Wonder Woman. I remember reading the issues when they came out in Germany and as most issues of WUNDERGIRL ( how Wonder Woman was called in Germany ) are either lost, in bad shape or buried somewhere where human hands cannot touch them - or any combination of the three - I would like to have a possibility to add them to my collection.
I sadly missed the GREEN LANTERN 1970 issue
as everybody keeps telling how great Neal Adams´art is but I managed to get my hands on GREEN LANTERN 1980 ( some preview pages ) . Now a lot of Green Lantern fans may say that their favorite artist on the book has always been Neal Adams or Mike Grell or Paul Pelletier. But the artist I mostly associate with Green Lantern is Joe Staton because he drew most of the german issues I read and later on he did the fantastic GUY GARDNER REBORN series and the first issues of Guy´s new title. Which where the fun issues before he turned into an alien Transformer.
So it was a real thrill for me that DC picked him as the artist for this RETROACTIVE issue. And the reprint has even art by the great Dave Gibbons. As the only issues I read of his run are some spanish trades my brother bought a long time ago this is another run I would like to see collected from DC.
From the Flash I got two issues, the first one is FLASH 1970 which I only got because of the reprint with beautiful art by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez. He really is one of my favorite artists and if you want a comic with wonderful black and white art by him, Brian Bolland and P Craig Russell get a copy of THE SPIRIT 17 by DC. Back to FLASH 1970 the story is boring and Sal Buscema´s inks are wasted on the art.
The FLASH 1980 issue is much better reuniting Bill Messner - Loebs and Greg LaRoque who did some of the best work on the title including THE RETURN OF BARRY ALLEN which was about the time I got on the book. The reprint story is another great example of their work so all in all another 4.99 well spent ( those books are a bit priced which is the reason why I was so picky with them ).
Now, here are my two absolute highligths of the RETROACTIVE line, the first one being BATMAN 1990 featuring the return of one of the best creative teams to EVER grace the insides of a Bat - related comic : Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle.
This mythic two - fisted combo rejuvenated the Batman, injecting an amazing amount of energy into a dwindling franchise. You can read more about my appreciation of Norm Breyfogle at length here and here but let me say that all those issues of Archie comics ( which I will get as soon as they are available via amazon ) haven´t diminished his ability to do kick - ass Batman stories. He´s as good or even better than in the reprint story. One of the things I´ll be looking for first when I´m in a comicshop in Barcelona are the reprint volumes of his Batman issues.
But my absolute favorite of them all - and I usually don´t say that without having read the comic - is the JUSTICE LEAGUE 1990 issue by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire.
Maguire has been underused lately in such weird anthology titles like WEIRD TALES which he clearly demonstrates in this issue featuring the best league of them all. I really can´t understand that he ( or Jerry Ordway ) are not part of the new DC. So, these were my picks from the Dc RETROACTIVE line and I have to say, for me it´s a sign of bad management when you put the 4.99 price tag so big on the cover without mentioning that is for 56 pages. DARK HORSE has no problems writing on issue 3 of DARK HORSE PRESENTS that it´s 104 pages thick. There are only two negative things I can say about this comic : it doesn´t have enough pages and the coloring is much too dark for this kind of paper.
Justice League 1990 review by Dad´s big plan´s Cap´n Carrot
Since DC also has a new movie in cinemas here´s the history of Green Lantern explained via another edition of Comic Alliance´s popular COMICS EVERYBODY ! series.
BETTER THE DAREDEVIL YOU KNOW
Over at Marvel - and this is probably a few months too late since the book is probably on it´s third or fourth issue - a special audio version of issue 1 of the new DAREDEVIL comic is available. A good idea and a clever way to promote this new number 1.
What´s a really bad idea is Marvel bribing comic retailers to destroy DC comics , namely ripping off 52 covers of any new 52 comics by DC and sending them in for a variant version of FEAR ITSELF nuber 6. The cover is by Ed McGuiness and let me just say that, no, I´m not posting it because as long as I pick out the material that goes on my blog I´m going for art I like or that fits the mood of what I have written and even I have standards. So if you want to check it out use the link but I´d rather post a cover by Rob Liefeld.
I SEE A RED SPIDER AND I WANT IT PAINTED BLACK
Another thing I wanted to add is this article about Black Spider - Man or rather how wrong it is to call him the black Spider - Man. While I can understand where he´s coming from I have to mention that it´s one thing to have a new character who happens to be black and another thing if you want to have a lot of media attention by doing a new version of an old one - just this one is black.
Come on, we all hate it but this is exactly what happens at comic companies. Remember when after RETURN OF THE DARK KNIGHT they all did new versions of the same characters - just grim and gritty this time ? That´s just how the business works and sometimes black is just another gimmick. I don´t know how the newsmedia will evolve but from my experience most so called journalists ( and I´m not including the enthusiastic comic fans who do excellent work on hundreds of webpages and blogs ) are just lazy, uninformed and borderline alcoholics. They hate to do research and when they can slap a headline on the article like NEW BLACK SPIDER - MAN most of them do.
As the comicshop has cancelled my brothers subscription to ULTIMATE SPIDER - MAN under misterious circumstances I´m not up to date on the series but I think Miles Morales will have to prove himself to the readers. Like Jaime Reyes, the new Blue Beetle, he has to show that he has more merit than just being black Spider - Man and that he´s not just the token ethnic minority hero. In the end that is what people will remember no matter if he´s black, white, yellow, green or blue.
Speaking about repercussions here is an interview with Peter David about X - FACTOR and the fallout from X - MEN SCHISM.
SQUIRREL GIRL SHAKE YOUR BUSHY TAIL
The issue to this preview has already come out but I´m posting it anyway. It´s NEW AVENGERS 15 written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Mike Deodato and while I´m not really a fan of the FEAR ITSELF tie - in issues with all the talking head pages I just have to endorse this comic because it features one of the best Avengers ever : Squirrel Girl. If there was one redeeming quality of Dan Slott´s " the little limited series that could but didn´t dare " GREAT LAKE AVENGERS it´s making the concept of Squirrel Girl cool. After landing a gig as Luke Cage and Jessica Jones´ new nanny in this issue Squirrel Girl enters the Octagon against Wolverine with unexpected results.
There was a poll some years ago, about which female Marvel character male fans would go out with and while most picked their favorites based on how hot they are in the comics my favorite would be Squirrel Girl because hanging out with her would be so much fun. And really, those Marvel artists can make any female look hot so your best bet is to go with personality.
I have already posted one COMICS EVERYBODY link explaining the history of a Marvel character upon which a movie was made - just recently - so here´s another one, about Thor .
Not much independent stuff Today, just this video from CBR tv with Jeff Smith in which he talks about BONE and RASL.
But if I haven´t already mentioned DO pick up the first issue of Terry Moore´s new series RACHEL RISING and if you have missed his fantastic ECHO series, it´s now collected in one whopping volume. So you have no excuses left.
THAT THING YOU DO
Lastly, time for some old business. You may remember that a few months back I posted some pictures of Marie - Claude Bourbonnais from a comic convention with another fellow female cosplayer dressed as female Loki ( Foki, Woki, She - Loki, Shoki ? ).
Thanks to a reader ( I owe you, Rodrigo ) I now know that she goes by Lafiel or A Riddle on the internet. Here´s another picture of her incredibly detailed Loki costume.
She also makes an awesome Black Cat and when I see her pictures I wonder why there has been no Black Cat in the Spider - Man movies so far ? Really, it´s not as difficult to pull of as Sandman or Doctor Octopuss and I´m going out on a limb and say audiences would not be adverse to it.
Although, now that Disney ownes Marvel how big are the chances for the Black Cat to appear in uncensored form in a movie when this costume
was even banned from the comics continuity ? Back to Lafiel ( I´m trying to avoid making any A Riddle jokes here ) I know that some of my readers have problems when there are too many pictures of sexy females in my post but I just had to include a few more to show how much detail she put into her costumes like into this Huntress outfit.
For the next picture I have to say I´m not sure if I´m supposed to know who that is, as I´m not so versed in video game or anime characters but once again, great costume.
And before you question yourself, it´s already too late for me to ask myself if I´m a dirty old man. According to a post by a female blogger I read last week I´m already a perv for finding someone attractive who´s younger than me. Which is kind of a problem when you´re 44 years old.
Because most hot looking women are probaly under the age of 44 at which the air really gets thin. I mean really, now I have to change my value set and ignore the way I have been thinking up until now ? From now on I´m only supposed to find women hot who are around my age, which still leaves me with the likes of Catherine Bell, Charisma Carpenter, Debbe Dunning, Maria Gracia Cucinotta, Monica Bellucci, Pamela Anderson, Sofia Vergara, Rosie Perez, Salma Hayek, Ninel Conde ( strangely all three of these latin movie stars celebarte their birthday in September ), Halle Berry and Janet Jackson. But it would mean thinking that women like Christina Hendricks or Erica Durance are attractive would be inappropiate for me because they are 11 years younger than me. I thought in this day and age we had overcome this whole " age restriction " thing when it comes to relationships but it seems it´s still a big thing.
Okay, back to Lafiel in a totally state - of - the - fact not pervy kind of way were I´m just mentioning on the side that she´s attractive without drawing too much attention to it because we all want to concentrate on the costumes without going for the pitchforks and torches.
Now I didn´t just mention her to post some pictures of her envy - inducing costumes ( makes me want to go out and make a costume for myself for my next comic convention ) but mainly because I got some links to add. Here is a page with some of her pictures from Flicker and you can find her official homepage with all the bells and whistles and links to Deviantart, Facebook, Twitter and all the other social networks right here . We really need to support dedicated fans so spread the word.
Since I´m clearing out the bookmarks from my taskbar Today´s video is one I think I haven´t posted yet. It´s the opening musical number from the special Dr. Who episode on Craig Ferguson that couldn´t be aired.
It´s really brilliant ( like almost everything related to The Doctor or Craig Ferguson ) and really a must see. On the show Craig has Chris Hardwick from The Nerdist Podcast who´s also a comedian and a big Dr. Who fan ( he did the Nail Gaiman interview I posted in July ) and current Doctor Matt Smith as guests. I´m really sparse with download links but since it´s never going to air in Germany here is a link for all those who can´t find it on the internet. The show aired on November the 16th 2010.
New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest
Great Lakes Avengers represent !
No comments:
Post a Comment