Huh. Never thought I'd reference a Barenaked Ladies song. There was no argument between Kelly and myself. However, it has been one week since I got home from Chicago Comic-Con. If you've been following me on Twitter (@klynchmob), then you've seen the little tidbits I've shared here and there.
Well, lots of stuff happened (most good, but one or two sour notes), so here I am with an after-report of Wizard World Chicago Comic-Con 2011!
Preview night was the same as always, except with one huge difference: We actually bought stuff on Preview Night! In years past, we reserved PN for doing some recon, scoping out what we wanted to get during the weekend, not for actually laying any money down. Hey, there's a lot of stuff there, you don't want to blow all your coin in one place, as it were. But, as Kelly put it, there've been too many years where we've said things like, "Hey, this is pretty cool, we should get this...tomorrow" and then whatever it was was gone by the next day.
That and the Walking Dead Compendium 1 was in one of the super-cheap trade paperback areas. So yeah, the first half of the series or so was only five dollars. Found the first two Daredevil ultimate collection volumes from Bendis' run on the book (not Ultimate Daredevil as someone asked) at the same place. I had been looking for those for awhile, and since it collects just BMB's work on the book, I didn't have to worry about the weird numbering issues that plagued that book (for example, Bendis didn't start writing with #1. They consider Kevin Smith's work on the Marvel Knights imprint to be part of the same volume). We also picked up the Gremlin Pop figurine (because it's much cuter than the Gizmo one) and a Darth Vader Mighty Mugg. Overall, a pretty good haul for PN.
Friday we set aside for most of the picture taking. I got to have my picture taken with Christopher Lloyd. And Sir Patrick Stewart. On the same day! How awesome is that?
Funny story about the picture with Patrick Stewart (and for those who do follow me on Twitter, you know where this is going). I have this shirt. Knowing that Sir Patrick Stewart is a Shakespearean actor, I thought he might get a kick out of it. So, I specifically chose to wear that shirt when I met Sir Patrick. With slightly offensive shirt and all, my brother (it was his birthday present) and I stood in line to get our photos taken. It was one of those deals where each person gets about three seconds with the celebrity (we joked that it was so quick that the photos would be the celebrity standing in the center and the fans would just be blurs in the back), so I figured he wouldn't notice the shirt.
I was wrong.
We get up to Sir Patrick and he shakes our hands (because he's good people that way). His eyes must have been drawn to the picture of the Bard, because he stops, studies it, looks up at me, and says, "oooh."
Now, I have no idea what this "oooh" meant. Did it mean that my shirt was good for a larf? Was he one second away from calling for his sword and slicing me in twain? I do not know. I feel I may have offended Sir Patrick Stewart, which was certainly not my intent. Especially because he's a knight (but especially the fact that he is Patrick Stewart, star of TV's Star Trek: The Next Generation) and is legally allowed to kill me for sport.
But yeah, still got my picture with him. And it's awesome.
Beyond that, we saw Nicholas Brendon's and Kelly Donovan's panel that afternoon. It's funny that both were at the Con this year, because last year Nicholas was there, and we were wondering if it was really him, or if Kelly was there in his place (it was Nicholas, Kelly's voice is different). Who is Nicholas Brendon and Kelly Donovan you ask? Nicholas Brendon was Xander on Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Kelly Donovan is Brendon's twin brother (and was in an episode of BtVS). They were really funny and Kelly spent most of the panel shirtless (Kelly Donovan. Not my Kelly).
The only bad part was that a young lady in the first row (and we were in the second, which was awesome) kept heckling and coming on to the two. I think even Nicholas and Kelly (both Donovan and my Kelly) were annoyed with her (and unfortunately, that wasn't the last we'd see of her that weekend).
Other than Kelly buying her tickets for her and her friends' pictures for Saturday, I don't think we spent any money.
The major event of Saturday is getting it's own post (yeah, it's that special), but if you'd like a preview for when I get around to writing it, you can watch it here.
Saturday, Kelly's friends Kat and Alicia (along with Kat's husband, Ed, and her brother, Hans) came down to spend the day with us (and get photos and go to panels and such).
Even though I knew there was a chance Patrick Stewart would have me killed on site, we still went to his panel and were in the second row (which, again, was awesome). The man is surprisingly funny. Just from his work, one has to assume that he has a good sense of humor (especially about himself), but I didn't expect him to be so charasmatic and witty. And the stories he told about Star Trek and X-Men were incredibly entertaining and informative. Also, I may have taken a lot of pictures. I mean, come on, were up front and it's Patrick Stewart!
If you watched the youtube video above, that is me in the video. And I am indeed proposing in that video. The camera was manned (so to speak) by a Slave Leia and those are Storm Troopers and other Star Wars characters escorting her from her place in line. I say this because we were in the audience for the Bruce Campbell panel not an hour later. Where a young man got Bruce Campbell to help him propose to his girlfriend. Yeah, that happened. I guess Comic-Con is just the place to propose. Who knew?
Sunday, we saw Bruce Campbell again. And I yelled at him. And he yelled back. The conversation was pretty much this:
Me: "BRUCE!"
Bruce Campbell: "YES!" (It was more of a confirmation he is indeed Bruce Campbell than it was inquisitive)
"You're looking rather dapper this morning" (He wore a variety of tuxes)
"Thank y...Wait, what'd you say?"
"You're looking rather dapper today!"
"Thanks. I'm just trying to keep up with all the well dressed people here!"
So yeah, I interacted with Bruce Campbell.
Sunday started on a bit of a sour note as we learned that Kelly's picture with Nicholas Brendon from the day before (she got it with Kat) had been destroyed by a leaky roof. We also learned that said leak may or may not have been responsible for destroying the remaining stock of photo paper so the rest of the pictures would have to be mailed out (still waiting on the Nicholas Brendon one and one other). But that did leave us with enough time to see James Marsters (Spike from Angel/BtvS). He was very mellow and was actually the most straight-laced of all the people we saw.
We were planning on having our pictures taken with Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery (the McManus boys from The Boondock Saints), but after hearing the news about the pictures, I was hesitant to pay for another. Kelly, however, was not.
We went ahead and got our pictures taken with the boys from The Boondock Saints (very nice boys). We then went to their panel, which was also a lot of fun (all of the panels were fantastic this year, but for different reasons).
On the way back down to the main convention hall (the panels were held up stairs this year. Something about a wedding and another convention), Kelly whispers that David Del Rocco (Rocco from The Boondock Saints) was behind us. Sure enough, Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery were right there with him.I was so close to the Boondock Saints, I could have touched them. But I didn't. Because Sean Patrick Flanery has just told us a story how he's really hardcore into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I did say they were awesome. To which I got a, "Thanks, brother."
After that, Kelly and I bummed around most of the rest of Sunday (we picked up some more books) and headed to dinner with some of my brother's friends (my brother hadn't been feeling well all weekend, so he skipped out). I will say this, Giordano's in Rosemont, Illinois has some of the best pizza I have ever had and going there is an event I look forward to every year.
The "after-convention" fun ended on a trip to the ER (and that's as far as I'll go with that story, since that is not mine to tell), but it all worked out in the end.
A lot happened in Chicago this year. I got engaged (no we have not yet set a date for the wedding), picked up a bunch of comics for dirt cheap, got a lot more pictures with celebrities than we did last year (I felt Wizard World had stepped up their game this year in terms of quality, but oddly enough, others disagree), and for the most part had a great weekend. It's still my goal to have my own panel at one of these conventions, but as I'm busy as hell these days preparing for the school year, I haven't gotten much editing done.
Oh well, there's always next year... ;)
Friday, August 26, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
The Captain is Real IN
It should be no surprise to anyone that I like comic books. I've also spent a good chunk of real estate on this here blog detailing my thoughts on films based on comic books (usually picking over things like the costume and changes to the story), but one film in specific has been absent (and one person actually asked me why). And that movie is: Captain America: The First Avenger. Since the film has been out for a couple of weeks and most people who are going to see it have seen it, I'm not going to write a review (I liked it. A lot), but rather go through a partial history of the development and my reaction to said...developments.
So let's start at the beginning, shall we? (or pretty close for our purposes...)
An interesting thing happened with Captain America: The First Avenger. As more details about the movie trickled in, the less enthusiastic I was for the final product. And no, it wasn't just, "Oh, this director sucks" or "Chris Evans isn't right for Cap." Ok, maybe I said that about the last one, but once leaked set footage appeared I was quickly silenced by just how much Evans looked like the character.
But I had the opposite comment about Joe Johnston, the director of Captain America: The First Avenger. About the only work I recalled of Johnston's was The Rocketeer, an enjoyable WWII-era superhero-esque fantasy film from the 90's. So he already had a pedigree for this type of work (this type of work being Nazis and superheroes).
It wasn't until comments from Johnston about production and the film that I really started getting worried. This was one of his first comments about Cap:
"It's not going to be a Captain America that you expect. It's something different. It is influenced by the comic book, but it goes off in a completely different direction."
Hearing that the director thinks it's a good idea to go off completely on his own is not something you want to hear about a comic book movie (or any film that's based on a literary work, really). It shows a lack of understanding and respect for the history of the character. It's like the director (or writer or producer) is saying, "this character has existed and endured for 70 years, but now I'm going to make him good!"
It was also a hint that maybe the studio was giving the directors more freedom in how they handled the characters (something that I point to as one of the reasons why Spider-Man 2 and 3 were disappointments). With movies like Spider-Man and Iron Man, I could picture someone in a black suit and sunglasses kicking over a chair, pulling a switchblade up to Raimi's and Favreau's necks and saying, "You won't screw this up if you know what's good for you..." and disappeared into the night. When the time to make Cap rolled around, Marvel Studios had a string of major and minor hits on their hands (Iron Man and Iron Man 2 being the major, Incredible Hulk being the minor), so maybe they felt the director could have more freedom in how he made the movie. Or maybe the guy from Swingers just "got" Iron Man a lot more than Joe Johnston seemed to "get" Captain America.
The concept art for the costume didn't help much, either. While the finished product looked a lot more like cloth than the initial picture, the concept looked like futuristic body armor. I won't go any further into it than that (already spent at least one entry doing that, anyway).
And then something happened. The aforementioned footage of a buff Chris Evans as Steve Rogers surfaced, leaving whether he could be the physically imposing super-soldier in little doubt. This was the still-in-excellent physical condition, but much thinner kid who had, only a couple of years ago, been the Human Torch in the Fox-licensed Fantastic Four movie. That, of course, was the second biggest hurdle (or perhaps even larger than if he could pull off the role unaided by CGI) with Evans. He, in my mind and in many others, was still remembered for his role as Johnny Storm (many articles about him even said Chris Evans, best known for his role as the Human Torch).
It's like (though maybe not to this extreme) if Christian Bale were to play Superman, or if Ryan Reynolds would be the Flash. Yes, Fantastic Four is licensed to Fox Studios (same as X-Men and DareDevil, though Spider-Man is licensed to Sony, which is why Kingpin probably won't show up in a Spidey flick) and Captain America is a Marvel Studios film, but many don't see a distinction. Seriously. People continue to ask and wish for a Spider-Man/Avengers/X-Men crossover film. So, it wasn't that far of a stretch for people to look at Chris as Steve Rogers and ask, "what the crap is that guy from FF doing in WWII?" Part of what helped IS the amount of muscle Chris Evans put on to play the role. The other, and we had to wait for the finished product to really determine this, was could he act differently than the sarcastic jerk from the FF movies.
The trailers began filtering in and I just about wrote the film off as the first real failure for Marvel. One that could spell disaster for Joss Whedon's The Avengers (though Whedon just couldn't have that. I'll get to that in a bit). A lot of the earlier trailers were mostly one liners and generic looking action shots (maybe that's all that the studio had finished, I don't know) and I thought to myself (and anyone who would listen, really) "If these are the best parts of the film, this is what is supposed to sell me on this movie, then this is going to suck)
So. The big question is now,after I've rambled on for paragraphs about my personal history with the development of Captain America (no, I didn't work on the film, I'm saying my reaction to the film's development) is did Chris Evans deliver?
The answer, as anyone who saw the film, was yes. Yes, he can. He has that that root-for-me-because-I'm-the-underdog charm that makes the character so likable. Yes, he also has the badass part down pat. But it's his, "I just want to do something good" attitude that really won me over.
Without knowing how much of the script Joss Whedon changed (he was brought in to rewrite the script to make it fit into his plan for The Avengers as well as to punch up a couple of scenes to add more character development), I can't say the film would've been worse without his involvement.
So, I guess what I'm getting at is: congratulations Joe Johnston and Chris Evans, you won me over. Now bring on the Avengers!
So let's start at the beginning, shall we? (or pretty close for our purposes...)
An interesting thing happened with Captain America: The First Avenger. As more details about the movie trickled in, the less enthusiastic I was for the final product. And no, it wasn't just, "Oh, this director sucks" or "Chris Evans isn't right for Cap." Ok, maybe I said that about the last one, but once leaked set footage appeared I was quickly silenced by just how much Evans looked like the character.
But I had the opposite comment about Joe Johnston, the director of Captain America: The First Avenger. About the only work I recalled of Johnston's was The Rocketeer, an enjoyable WWII-era superhero-esque fantasy film from the 90's. So he already had a pedigree for this type of work (this type of work being Nazis and superheroes).
It wasn't until comments from Johnston about production and the film that I really started getting worried. This was one of his first comments about Cap:
"It's not going to be a Captain America that you expect. It's something different. It is influenced by the comic book, but it goes off in a completely different direction."
Hearing that the director thinks it's a good idea to go off completely on his own is not something you want to hear about a comic book movie (or any film that's based on a literary work, really). It shows a lack of understanding and respect for the history of the character. It's like the director (or writer or producer) is saying, "this character has existed and endured for 70 years, but now I'm going to make him good!"
It was also a hint that maybe the studio was giving the directors more freedom in how they handled the characters (something that I point to as one of the reasons why Spider-Man 2 and 3 were disappointments). With movies like Spider-Man and Iron Man, I could picture someone in a black suit and sunglasses kicking over a chair, pulling a switchblade up to Raimi's and Favreau's necks and saying, "You won't screw this up if you know what's good for you..." and disappeared into the night. When the time to make Cap rolled around, Marvel Studios had a string of major and minor hits on their hands (Iron Man and Iron Man 2 being the major, Incredible Hulk being the minor), so maybe they felt the director could have more freedom in how he made the movie. Or maybe the guy from Swingers just "got" Iron Man a lot more than Joe Johnston seemed to "get" Captain America.
The concept art for the costume didn't help much, either. While the finished product looked a lot more like cloth than the initial picture, the concept looked like futuristic body armor. I won't go any further into it than that (already spent at least one entry doing that, anyway).
And then something happened. The aforementioned footage of a buff Chris Evans as Steve Rogers surfaced, leaving whether he could be the physically imposing super-soldier in little doubt. This was the still-in-excellent physical condition, but much thinner kid who had, only a couple of years ago, been the Human Torch in the Fox-licensed Fantastic Four movie. That, of course, was the second biggest hurdle (or perhaps even larger than if he could pull off the role unaided by CGI) with Evans. He, in my mind and in many others, was still remembered for his role as Johnny Storm (many articles about him even said Chris Evans, best known for his role as the Human Torch).
It's like (though maybe not to this extreme) if Christian Bale were to play Superman, or if Ryan Reynolds would be the Flash. Yes, Fantastic Four is licensed to Fox Studios (same as X-Men and DareDevil, though Spider-Man is licensed to Sony, which is why Kingpin probably won't show up in a Spidey flick) and Captain America is a Marvel Studios film, but many don't see a distinction. Seriously. People continue to ask and wish for a Spider-Man/Avengers/X-Men crossover film. So, it wasn't that far of a stretch for people to look at Chris as Steve Rogers and ask, "what the crap is that guy from FF doing in WWII?" Part of what helped IS the amount of muscle Chris Evans put on to play the role. The other, and we had to wait for the finished product to really determine this, was could he act differently than the sarcastic jerk from the FF movies.
The trailers began filtering in and I just about wrote the film off as the first real failure for Marvel. One that could spell disaster for Joss Whedon's The Avengers (though Whedon just couldn't have that. I'll get to that in a bit). A lot of the earlier trailers were mostly one liners and generic looking action shots (maybe that's all that the studio had finished, I don't know) and I thought to myself (and anyone who would listen, really) "If these are the best parts of the film, this is what is supposed to sell me on this movie, then this is going to suck)
So. The big question is now,after I've rambled on for paragraphs about my personal history with the development of Captain America (no, I didn't work on the film, I'm saying my reaction to the film's development) is did Chris Evans deliver?
The answer, as anyone who saw the film, was yes. Yes, he can. He has that that root-for-me-because-I'm-the-underdog charm that makes the character so likable. Yes, he also has the badass part down pat. But it's his, "I just want to do something good" attitude that really won me over.
Without knowing how much of the script Joss Whedon changed (he was brought in to rewrite the script to make it fit into his plan for The Avengers as well as to punch up a couple of scenes to add more character development), I can't say the film would've been worse without his involvement.
So, I guess what I'm getting at is: congratulations Joe Johnston and Chris Evans, you won me over. Now bring on the Avengers!
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Up and at Them
I've been trying to lay off DC Comics (which is still weird because the 'C' in DC stands for Comics, so it's effectively saying Detective Comics Comics, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms) during the whole "DCnU/Reboot/Relaunch" event, because, well, there wasn't any specific reason. I guess I just wanted to wait and see how this thing plays out before tearing it apart.
But then, in DC-related news, the first shot of Henry Cavill, the man who would be Superman in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, in the costume surfaced today. What. The. Heck? How come, in over thirty years, has no one been able to make a decent looking big-screen Superman suit? If you haven't seen it yet, you can see it HERE. And be sure to check out the enlarged version, where a lot more detail is visible.
Just from the shot on SHH!'s story page, the costume doesn't look half bad. But, in the enlarged shot, some things really start to stick out. First, there's the latex-scale thing going on. Spider-Man started a dangerous trend when he first appeared on the silver screen in 2001, and no one has used it to as great as success (including the last attempt at a Superman film) since.
The 'S' is still raised, but not as much. However, it also has the scaley pattern to it. It just looks...weird. It also appears to be closer to the Golden Age 'S' shield than his modern costume. That begs the question, "Why?" There's a reason that artists no longer draw the logo that way. It just looks awkward.
The sleeves have kind of a cuff to them that at first I though was how some artists have been drawing him lately. It could have been that they had already seen the costume and were trying to integrate design elements into the comics, but then I realized that Supergirl is the one with a similar pattern. Not exactly the same, but similar. I also noticed that there is piping on the legs and along the torso. Not sure what the fascination with that these days, and it appears to pop up in most redesigned costumes (I've even tried it out with the Zero character a couple of times). Hopefully, the suit doesn't have ribbing...
We haven't seen the back of the cape yet, so we don't know if it'll have the yellow S shield, but I will give them props for having what appears to be a cloth cape. Looks better than the Returns cape, anyway. I also like that the colors look to be brighter in general than the Routh costume. The reds are red, instead of a maroonish/brownish color.
Speaking of reds, I can't be certain, but from the picture it looks like Supes is missing his bright red briefs. A lot of people say that it's goofy to have a grown man in tights AND wearing his underpants on the outside of his clothes. I argue that, without the pants, the character just doesn't feel right. There's too much blue, broken up only by what appears to be a dark-colored belt. Now it looks like one, big ,scaley, blue body suit. It's a similar argument to the Wonder Woman bikini debate. People crow on and on that a person shouldn't be fighting crime in a swimsuit or with their tighty whities (or in this case, red...ies) on display for the world to see. But without these elements, the characters don't look right. They just don't seem like themselves.
To me, it always comes off as a desperate ploy to look hip and modern, just like with the armored panels and piping and ribbing. At least, however, it isn't CG alien musculature and is an actual, physical costume.
The actor looks like he could play an evil Superman. Could be the seemingly lack of eyebrows.
I went on longer about the costume than I thought I would, so I'm going to cut it off here. I'll probably tackle the DC Reboot when I have more time and energy. Also have to get in my thoughts on Captain America eventually...
But then, in DC-related news, the first shot of Henry Cavill, the man who would be Superman in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, in the costume surfaced today. What. The. Heck? How come, in over thirty years, has no one been able to make a decent looking big-screen Superman suit? If you haven't seen it yet, you can see it HERE. And be sure to check out the enlarged version, where a lot more detail is visible.
Just from the shot on SHH!'s story page, the costume doesn't look half bad. But, in the enlarged shot, some things really start to stick out. First, there's the latex-scale thing going on. Spider-Man started a dangerous trend when he first appeared on the silver screen in 2001, and no one has used it to as great as success (including the last attempt at a Superman film) since.
The 'S' is still raised, but not as much. However, it also has the scaley pattern to it. It just looks...weird. It also appears to be closer to the Golden Age 'S' shield than his modern costume. That begs the question, "Why?" There's a reason that artists no longer draw the logo that way. It just looks awkward.
The sleeves have kind of a cuff to them that at first I though was how some artists have been drawing him lately. It could have been that they had already seen the costume and were trying to integrate design elements into the comics, but then I realized that Supergirl is the one with a similar pattern. Not exactly the same, but similar. I also noticed that there is piping on the legs and along the torso. Not sure what the fascination with that these days, and it appears to pop up in most redesigned costumes (I've even tried it out with the Zero character a couple of times). Hopefully, the suit doesn't have ribbing...
We haven't seen the back of the cape yet, so we don't know if it'll have the yellow S shield, but I will give them props for having what appears to be a cloth cape. Looks better than the Returns cape, anyway. I also like that the colors look to be brighter in general than the Routh costume. The reds are red, instead of a maroonish/brownish color.
Speaking of reds, I can't be certain, but from the picture it looks like Supes is missing his bright red briefs. A lot of people say that it's goofy to have a grown man in tights AND wearing his underpants on the outside of his clothes. I argue that, without the pants, the character just doesn't feel right. There's too much blue, broken up only by what appears to be a dark-colored belt. Now it looks like one, big ,scaley, blue body suit. It's a similar argument to the Wonder Woman bikini debate. People crow on and on that a person shouldn't be fighting crime in a swimsuit or with their tighty whities (or in this case, red...ies) on display for the world to see. But without these elements, the characters don't look right. They just don't seem like themselves.
To me, it always comes off as a desperate ploy to look hip and modern, just like with the armored panels and piping and ribbing. At least, however, it isn't CG alien musculature and is an actual, physical costume.
The actor looks like he could play an evil Superman. Could be the seemingly lack of eyebrows.
I went on longer about the costume than I thought I would, so I'm going to cut it off here. I'll probably tackle the DC Reboot when I have more time and energy. Also have to get in my thoughts on Captain America eventually...
Monday, August 1, 2011
Convention Time Again!
It's August 1st already. That means in exactly one month the new school year will begin and I'll once again be assaulted by students for my GamerTag (students don't understand that I don't have an XBox 360 or that Sony calls the UserID something else on the Playstation 3). In a related note, I have a long-term sub assignemtn this year! But, before I collapse into a nervous wreck over that, there're some things I'd like to get out:
First off, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who purchased Project Zero: Bulletproof during Smashword's July sale. It's great to see people taking advantage of great offers like that. I'd also like to invite those readers (and anyone who has read Bulletproof) to take a minute or two and write a review.
Second, it is less than two weeks until Chicago Comic-Con, which I will be attending. Again. For the fifth (I think) year in a row. It's something I always look forward to, even with the decreased presence from the comic industry (seriously, it's to the point where it can't even really be called a comic convention). This year continues last year's trend of just gathering a bunch of A-C list celebrities and letting people take photos with 'em. Last year, Kelly and her friend, Kat, got a picture with James Marsters (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame). This year, I'm hoping to get a picture with Patrick Stewart. He was supposed to be there last year, but pulled out at the last minute for reasons unknown (I heard reasons ranging from scheduling conflicts to the convention company never really had him signed to appear at all. But, if that were the case, then why would he agree to come this year. That is, if he shows). Also, both Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flannery (the brothers from The Boondock Saints) are going to be there.
I have to put together a list of trade paperbacks (and hardcovers) to hunt for at the convention. It'd be easier if the publishers made it simple and just numbered the volumes (and logically). DC refuses to number volumes (at least it did, I recall seeing a couple that might've been numbered) and Marvel doesn't always logically number their's (The Death of Captain America is split into three volumes, but is actaully something like volumes 5-7 of Brubaker's run on the book).I have the first trade of the ongoing Nightwing series, but it's impossible to tell if any of the volumes I've found after are the next because of a lack of numbering (that and DC got a little weird with what issues were being collected in which trade).
I'm going to be hunting for: Atomic Robo volume 5 (not likely to find it because it was just released to retailers last week)
Bendis' and Brubaker's run on DareDevil (another book that's victim of bizarre numbering)
Captain America (pretty sure I have all of the trades leading up to his death plus Steve Rogers' return)
Invincible (the latest, although now that it's been pointed out how stiff the dialogue is, I'm not sure I can read it).
Also looking for: Those lil Pop things (the quasi-replacement for Mighty Muggs that are about 3 inches tall and have both Marvel and DC characters), Mighty Muggs (have a couple I want to get still and maybe a loose one for my classroom).
Other than that, just going to sit back and gawk at celebrities. Maybe even tell Lou Ferrigno that he owes me money. And that'll end up like the time that guy from Lonely Island fought Rocky. But I like my teeth, they let me eat things that aren't liquid or gelatenous, so I'll probably keep my mouth shut.
My brother, James Lynch, is going to once again have a table in Artist's Alley. He's under his name (and maybe his Hero Universe label), so stop on by his booth, say hello, maybe pick up one of his books or prints (he does commissions and I hear his prices are very, very reasonable). If you look 'im up on Wizards' website, someone (he adamently denies it was him) has pieced together a profile of him which is a picture of him from when he was twenty and his writers' profile on his website (which is one long joke). So don't hold that against him. Though if you know who did it and why, be sure to tell us at the con.
Now, if only I could get Patrick Stewart to do my voice mail message. Even if it was just him listing the things he had eaten for breakfast that day...
First off, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who purchased Project Zero: Bulletproof during Smashword's July sale. It's great to see people taking advantage of great offers like that. I'd also like to invite those readers (and anyone who has read Bulletproof) to take a minute or two and write a review.
Second, it is less than two weeks until Chicago Comic-Con, which I will be attending. Again. For the fifth (I think) year in a row. It's something I always look forward to, even with the decreased presence from the comic industry (seriously, it's to the point where it can't even really be called a comic convention). This year continues last year's trend of just gathering a bunch of A-C list celebrities and letting people take photos with 'em. Last year, Kelly and her friend, Kat, got a picture with James Marsters (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame). This year, I'm hoping to get a picture with Patrick Stewart. He was supposed to be there last year, but pulled out at the last minute for reasons unknown (I heard reasons ranging from scheduling conflicts to the convention company never really had him signed to appear at all. But, if that were the case, then why would he agree to come this year. That is, if he shows). Also, both Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flannery (the brothers from The Boondock Saints) are going to be there.
I have to put together a list of trade paperbacks (and hardcovers) to hunt for at the convention. It'd be easier if the publishers made it simple and just numbered the volumes (and logically). DC refuses to number volumes (at least it did, I recall seeing a couple that might've been numbered) and Marvel doesn't always logically number their's (The Death of Captain America is split into three volumes, but is actaully something like volumes 5-7 of Brubaker's run on the book).I have the first trade of the ongoing Nightwing series, but it's impossible to tell if any of the volumes I've found after are the next because of a lack of numbering (that and DC got a little weird with what issues were being collected in which trade).
I'm going to be hunting for: Atomic Robo volume 5 (not likely to find it because it was just released to retailers last week)
Bendis' and Brubaker's run on DareDevil (another book that's victim of bizarre numbering)
Captain America (pretty sure I have all of the trades leading up to his death plus Steve Rogers' return)
Invincible (the latest, although now that it's been pointed out how stiff the dialogue is, I'm not sure I can read it).
Also looking for: Those lil Pop things (the quasi-replacement for Mighty Muggs that are about 3 inches tall and have both Marvel and DC characters), Mighty Muggs (have a couple I want to get still and maybe a loose one for my classroom).
Other than that, just going to sit back and gawk at celebrities. Maybe even tell Lou Ferrigno that he owes me money. And that'll end up like the time that guy from Lonely Island fought Rocky. But I like my teeth, they let me eat things that aren't liquid or gelatenous, so I'll probably keep my mouth shut.
My brother, James Lynch, is going to once again have a table in Artist's Alley. He's under his name (and maybe his Hero Universe label), so stop on by his booth, say hello, maybe pick up one of his books or prints (he does commissions and I hear his prices are very, very reasonable). If you look 'im up on Wizards' website, someone (he adamently denies it was him) has pieced together a profile of him which is a picture of him from when he was twenty and his writers' profile on his website (which is one long joke). So don't hold that against him. Though if you know who did it and why, be sure to tell us at the con.
Now, if only I could get Patrick Stewart to do my voice mail message. Even if it was just him listing the things he had eaten for breakfast that day...
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