Favorites of 2010

Chew - Chew started around October 2009, and 2010 was its first full year, and it has been great. The artist and writer both won the Eisner Award, and Harvey Awards, and was nominated for 2 Eagle Awards this year.  Above all, check this book out.  Great concept in Tony Chu, an FDA agent,  who gets psychic impressions from things he eats

Sweets - Artist created, written and illustrated work, Sweets is a crime story that takes place in New Orleans, and written by Kody Chamberlain who now lives in Lafayette but used to live here in New Orleans.  Classic noir feel, and looks and feels like New Orleans.  Many books have tried to get that look, but without being here and living here, it misses some of the nuances.






 
Blackest Night - Blackest Night started in 2009, but finished up in 2010, and with the introduction the of all of the new lantern corps, this series has continued to bring new stories to DC.  In the grand scheme of things, it may have looked just like a super powered zombie story with the Black Lanterns bringing back those that have been dead for years.








Superman: Earth One - I'm not sure I have seen single book get more pre-release press than this book this year, and unfortunately most of it was all wrong. It was billed as a Superman version of Twilight, and it could not be further from that.  I'm generally not a Superman fan, he is usually too powerful and ends up being to boring of a character, but Straczynski did a great job in telling a story of young Clark Kent, struggling with wanting to help his parents, wanting to just be a regular person, or whether to use his powers to help others.


Criminal Vol. 5: The Sinners -  Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips finished up this series this year, and if you are not in any of the superhero or any "metahuman" this series was just about regular people, except for the career criminal of the people of the story.  This book brings back the main character Tracy Lawless trying to solve some mysterious murders. Always well done, always a good story in all of these books.




Parker: The Outfit (Richard Stark's Parker) - I have mentioned this one before, but just wanted to mention it again here, because it is so good.  I love a good noir story whether its in comics, movies, or books, and these stories are based off of a good noir book series, and when you add in the art style of this book and its just a really great book.


 Here are two examples of the art style of the book.
 

Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer Volume 2: The Great Puppet Theater  - This one is just a mention, not an all time favorite for the year, but a good quick book to read that makes to laugh when you think of Pinocchio slaying vampires.  This series is directed at the younger audience like teens, for what it is, it is good, and it has stepped up from the first volume.

Baking in Comics (The Christmas Special)

Now baking and comics really have nothing in common, so this isn't so much a Christmas Special, and just the only special case I know.

This year for a Christmas Special, DC put out a Green Lantern Larfleeze Christmas. This past year brought about the creation of the color spectrum of Lanterns.  Now, not only is there a Green Lantern, but Red, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Pink, Indigo, White, and Black.  Each one represents some other "emotion" (that pretty much means any but Green, Black, and White).  Red is rage, Blue is hope, Pink is love, Yellow is fear, etc.

That brings us to the Orange Lantern, Larfleeze, on the cover.  Orange is the color of avarice, and so Larfleeze only wants things, and anything he can get his hands on, so this story deals with how much Larfleeze is looking forward to Santa visiting him and giving him everything he ever wanted.  Of course when Santa doesn't show, he gets angry and starts trying to hunt him down until finally the Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, finds him and tells him the truth about Santa.  In the end its a simple and fun Christmas tale that was a surprise holiday story, because most of them generally are boring.

Now back to the baking part of this.  Larfleeze left special Orange Lantern cookies for Santa.  I'm not sure I have ever seen a recipe pop up in a comic book before, but this year, this Christmas, there is was.

Cookies

¼ cup butter (softened)
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons of orange juice concentrate (thawed)
1 teaspoon of orange zest
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
A dash of salt
½ cup white chocolate chunks

1) Preheat your earth-oven to 350 degrees

2) In a big bowl beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, orange juice concentrate and orange zest. Then add egg and vanilla until it looks delicious.

3) In a small bowl stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda and dash of salt together.

4) Add the small bowl to the big bowl and stir until smooth. Mix in white chocolate chunks.

5) Drop small balls of dough across a greased cookie sheet.

6) Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until golden brown.

7) Let the cookies cool as you mix the frosting

Frosting
2 tablespoons orange concentrate (thawed)
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons butter (softened)

1 ½ cups powdered sugar

1) Mix all of the above until it looks like frosting!

2) Spread the frosting across cooled cookies (it will melt otherwise!)

Makes approximately two dozen cookies  or one serving ENJOY!

This the symbol for the Orange Lantern, and this is the shape he draws in orange over the white frosting.

I'm just curious how these would taste now. Lots of orange, so guess you better like that.

Excelsior! Happy Birthday Stan Lee

Today, December 28th, is Stan Lee's Birthday.  It is is 88th birthday and yet he never stops moving.  He just started writing new comics, he is on television shows.  Truly the hardest working guy in the comic industry still.

He was born Stanley Lieber in 1922.  He graduated from high school two years early, and soon after started working at Timely Comics which later became Marvel in the 60s, and back then was just doing basic work around the office,  like getting lunch or even a little bit of proofreading. 

Lee along with mostly Jack Kirby, but also Steve Ditko and Bill Everett went on to created Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, X-men, Avengers, The Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and of course Willie Lumpkin.  Stan Lee also played a large role in making the Comic Code Authority, a comic book censorship organization run by the government, change their policies so that comics good become a true art form. 

60 years later, even at one point getting out of the industry back in the 50s, is still writing comics today.  Just this year he announced, he helped create three new comic book heroes, Soldier Zero, Starborn, and The Traveler,  joined with BOOM! and POW Studios.  He is narrating video games like Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions, and a number of cameos in movies and TV Shows.  Stan "The Man" Lee continues to be an iconic star of the comic book industry, and I hope he has many more years continuing to be apart of the industry.

Comic Alliances: The Complete Great Comics That Never Happened Holidays Specials

I just had to make sure at least these two pictures got out more.  These are hilarious, and I would kill for these.  Here is the full article.  Comic Alliance - Comics that Never Were



Superman's Cousins No-El and The Dreaded Dreidel of Doom
For all the non-comic book fans out there, Superman's Krpytonian name is Kal-El.

Please go check out the rest of them. Comic Alliance - Comics that Never Were

Green Hornet Review (Spoiler Free)

I got to see a sneak preview of this Tuesday night, and since the movie is still well over 2 weeks away. I'm going to do my best to review this without giving anything away.

Lets just get this out of the way now. Its not a classic Green Hornet film.  Its a comedy, but a fun action comedy.  Seth Rogen as Britt Reid aka Green Hornet and Jay Chou as Kato have become more of a comedy duo with slight crime fighting thrown in.  The villain is played by Christoph Waltz who also played a great Nazi villain in Tarentino's Inglorious Basterds and again he plays the character very well, but this time probably not given enough screen time to make the character great.  The last main character is Cameron Diaz's Lenore Case, and I'm not a big fan of her of the choice for her in this movie, but its not too bad in the end.  Finally is Tom Wilkinson who plays, James Reid, Britt Reid's Father in the movie.  Wilkinson doesn't have a large part, but he seems to do alright with his few lines in the beginning of the movie.

One of my favorite parts in the movie is some Bruce Lee recognition early on in the movie.  As some of you may know, Bruce Lee played Kato in the original Green Hornet TV Show from the 60s.  I won't say how it happens, but you can't miss it.  Kato is a great character, and has always been a change up from the traditional hero/sidekick.  Kato is the fighter, and inventor of weapons, and Green Hornet just uses these inventions and throws a few punches here and there.  It has always been some of the running jokes in series.

Green Hornet has always been about removing organized crime from the city, and this movie is no different.  Waltz's character, Chudnosfsky is a crime lord trying to take over all of Los Angeles, but Britt Reid decides he is going to trying and stop this by taking over parts of it himself, but what seems for all of the wrong reasons.  It is under the guise of helping people, and they do start off because someone was in danger, but in does kind of feel more like "fun" instead of something a bit more meaningful.

Micheal Gondry is an odd choice for the director for this movie, but it was alright. The only real problem was the end seemed a bit too drawn out, and that could have been a combination of script and directing.  They added in a bit of slow-motion "bullet time" effect for Kato's fighting, and when I first saw it I was annoyed, but by the end, the used it so infrequent it was nearly as bad as I was expecting.

In the end, this movie is fun, and you will spend a large part of this movie laughing.  There is some very good rapport between Rogen and Chou that works perfectly for this movie. Rogen wrote and stared in the movie.  He writes funny movies, and if you don't like him that much, this movie has a lot of him in it, so it might not be the movie for you.

Conclusion:

All you need to know is that this is a good comedy movie, and a good action movie, but this is not a great movie.  Still, I suggest watching, if not in the theaters, definitely dvd/blu-ray/netflix.

Marvel's Next Big Event: Fear Itself

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" - FDR. This is what you have been seeing in the Marvel books for the past month or so. This has all been a teaser for Marvel's next big crossover event that was announced with a press conference at Midtown Comics Dec 21st.  Fear Itself.  It will be written by Matt Fraction with illustrator Stuart Immonen will be released April 2011.  There will also be a Prologue book that be written by Ed Brubaker.


"Times are tough, people are losing their jobs. Turn on TV to find pundit telling you to be afraid. The world is divided, but who can you trust?"  Joe Quesada leads off the press conference with this speech, of course this is a shorten version, but after this he follows it up with, "... but here is the good news, we are talking about the Marvel Universe", and then plays the following trailer.



So far it looks like Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Spider-man, Cyclops are a few that will take a major part in the event.  At least these are most of the ones that have been in teaser posters.

"WHO ARE THE WORTHY?" is being thrown around, as in, who are going to be the leading characters of this event.  We have Cap struggling with a crushed shield, and also Cyclops in a Magneto costume.  Looks like a number of interesting things could happen.

 Next big event will be an "extinction level event", a "world changer", but Marvel claims this with all of its events.  Like Civil War, many things changed, but for a couple of months and things finally get back to just like they were before.  I'm not sure how well I trust Marvel with big crossover events anymore.  Not that I am saying DC is any better at the moment, but maybe a slightly better track record of recent (I did thoroughly enjoy Blackest Night).

Marvel loves to pull in the real world events into its books.  Its one of the few that does more real world stuff all of the time.  For example, Marvel always has the current US President as the actually President.  As you heard with Quesada's opening speech, they are again pulling in events and feelings of the current world to throw into their books.  It always sounds like a great idea when they do say it, but I haven't seen a good execution of it in awhile.

In Avengers #5 from a month or so ago, there was a scene were future Tony Stark is showing a map of time to current Tony Stark, and on this map is apparently a number of hints to Fear Itself, but also a number of other events for Marvel to use well into the future.
A very good question was asked during the conference, about "why does it look like Marvel is going back to its moody, dark, and death phase after just starting the Heroic Age which was supposed to get back to heroes acting like heroes?"  The answer was pretty much, we want our heroes to feel like regular people, having to deal with the current problems of the day.

Come April, and the six following months (this pace never works for any company and there will definitely be a month or two space between a couple books), Marvel will be publishing Fear Itself for $3.99 with the first issue being around 45 pages.  With all crossover events (mainly DC and Marvel), there will be a ton of tie in books for this event. Many of these books maybe interesting, but so many ties in make it difficult to follow the full story.

Comics and Christmas (Punk Rock) Music

So Christmas music and comics really have nothing to do with each other, so this will be pretty quick.

A number of years ago, Newarama had an interview with Joe Quesada, editor in chief, of Marvel Comics.  He talked a band he had, and a Christmas song he put together.  If I remember right, that is him and his daughter talking at points.  It is a pretty good punk rock version of Frosty The Snowman, and I have ended up listening to it every year.

Frosty the Snowman by colorblindlantern

So now that that is over, I guess I will just mention a few of my favorite songs of the holidays, even if they might not be all about Christmas.




Smashing Pumpkins: Christmas Time. This video is way too creepy.


The Kinks: Father Chrismas


Polyphonic Spree: Happy Xman/War is Over. No idea where is video came from, its all Lennon related stuff, but with the Spree's versions instead of his. I like his version, just trying to pick "different" stuff this time around.


The Ramones: Merry Christmas (I don't want to fight tonight).



Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Feliz Navidad. This is from last year's ATHF Christmas album.


I guess that is enough.  Merry Hanukkah and Happy Christmas.


I guess I'm going to throw in these last two for Anaraug.

On Jon Favreau leaving Iron Man 3

The news came out today, Dec 15th (yesterday by the time I post this) that Favreau will be not be continue his work of the Iron Man series into the 3rd film.  Speculation is of course flying around with everything and everything as to why he is leaving.  Publicly he has said that he has no idea where the movie is supposed to go after the Avengers movie, and maybe he is being honest, who knows.

 He is still down, as of now, as an executive producer of The Avengers movie.  Maybe he will drop out of that movie as well, I don't know.  I fear why he is leaving. That he doesn't think he can deliver something good, but if he can't, who will be able too.  Iron Man 2 was definitely not the best movie that it could be. It was missing to much, to many things that should have been done better. 

I'm am starting to feel that that it maybe time for Nolan and/or Bale to leave the Batman series.  Dark Knight was a great movie, but with some things in the movie, I'm not sure they will over come them to make a movie just as good.  Honestly, without Heath Ledger's Joker, that movie would not have been nearly as good. 

After a couple of franchise movies, it probably is a good time to step away.  Just look at Spider-Man 3, a terrible movie, but 1 and 2 were pretty good. That third movie can be a just a bit too hit or miss. I used to enjoy a good Sam Raimi movie. Evil Dead/Army of Darkness series are great, but now I worry about other Raimi movies.

Favreau will continue to make some good movies, it just won't be an Iron Man movie.  Since its Christmas Time, go ahead and watch Elf sometime in the next two weeks.  That is if you haven't seen it on tv the hundreds of times it has already been on.

Origin Story

So I guess its time for the origin story. For the most part, I have only been into comics heavily for the past 5 years.  Specifically, December '05, right after Hurricane Katrina. Before this, I had had comics around, nothing new by any means.  Around '92-'93, I think, my cousin got into comics for a little bit and I read a few of his. This was right around the Death of Superman, and I believe the next Christmas, I was given the Death and Life of Superman which was the novelization of the death of superman, and his return.  I loved that book. I probably read it twice just in the first year.

With my interest in comics rising, my father found me his old collection, and here was when I was introduced to my two favorite characters, still to this day.  The Spirit by Will Eisner, and  The Green Hornet created by Trendle and Striker.  Of course Green Hornet was first meant for the radio back in 1936, and getting his first comic book appearance in 1940. The coincidence here his that The Spirit got his comic book start in 1940 as well. Both very similar characters, but both unique enough in there own right.  The issues seemed been collected over time in the 60s -70s by not only my father but also his brother who was a few years older.  Also collected in here were a few Green Lantern issues from what I recall were from the 70s, and then some Avengers, and a little bit of Marvel stuff thrown around.  Back then I didn't like Green Lantern.  It was just a bit too weird, too much space stuff going on, etc.  And of course now, Hal Jordan is one of my favorite characters around. Back to the early to mid 90s, I started reading some of my dad's collection and was loving it.  As a child of 8-10, I didn't have enough money to buy comics myself so I never really read anything new, so my love for comics actually died shortly after it started. I still liked Superman and Batman, but read very few things for the next decade.

So jump back to August 2005, I had moved out of my parents house for a few years, but I always kept my little collection of comics with me (which mostly included the stuff my dad gave me).  Of course I kept these in a nice plastic box in a closet at my apartment on Canal Blvd in Lakeview, but the hurricane saw fit to floozy that house with 7 feet of water, and like thousands upon thousands of NOLA residents, I lost everything I owned except for the few things I took with me.  Now, after a few months traveling around Tennessee, then to Arkansas, and then to Texas, I was finally back home come late October.

I guess like a number of people, I started to miss my belongings that had been lost, but I noticed that I kept feeling sentimental about the comic books. I don't even remember where I first heard about it, but I heard about this semi-new series called Invincible which was billed as a super hero comic book that really strayed away from the normal super hero themes.  It had a teenage coming into his powers with his father being the protector of Earth, a Superman like character, extremely fast, and strong, etc.   Anyway, December '05, I went to Midtown Comics website and ordered the first volume.  I probably read through it that night, and the next day ordered the next two volumes. The next month, I moved out to Prytania, and lived right above the Creole Creamery.  One day while out there, I took my bike and rode out to Oak Street, where I found More Fun Comics actually open.  I had been there when I was younger, but kind of forgot about it.  Any I walked in and picked up a few issues to get me started again, and had DC, the guy who runs the store, order me volume 1 and 2 of the return of Green Arrow, which were written by Kevin Smith, of Clerks and Mallrats fame.  A few weeks later, I picked up my volumes, started a pull list, and have been showing up there every few weeks ever since. So pretty much five years ago this month, I got addicted to comics.  Through the ups and downs of live, comics are always there, always drawing you in.  Even too this day, I find stuff that I haven't read yet.  Books that are classic to readers who have been following books for years.

Christmas Gifts Ideas for the comic book nerd

Sure, it is late for this kind of thing, except for some of us who still have all but a single gift purchased.  Some of use love the thrill of procrastination.  I'm going to split these up between the comic book nerd that has everything so will be looking at some newer releases, and then maybe the person you want to get into comics.

First up is the newer stuff for the everyday comic book nerd. 

Chew vol 3: Just Desserts written by John Layman with artist Rob Guillory.  Tony Chu, the main character for this series, is a cibopathic FDA agent meaning he has the ability to get a psychic impression of something by eating it.  Being an detective for the government, this quickly turns into him eating dead body parts and getting an impression of what happened to that person as they died.  This particular volume deals with Tony hunting down his ex-partner, Mason Savoy, who is also a cibopath.






The Unwritten Vol 2: Inside Man written by Mike Carey and illustrated by Peter Gross.  Unwritten follows Tom Taylor, who's father wrote books in the same vein as Harry Potter, but with his son as the main character.  Tom has to deal with somewhat celebrity status because the character was so closely based on him. So think if Harry Potter was based off a real kid, just an completely boring kid.  Only later do strange things start happening, and make his followers believe he actually is the character from the book.  Volume 2 follows Tom into prisoner where he was sent after being accused of killing a room full of famous artists.

Richard Stark's Parker: The Outfit adapted from the classic series of books and illustrated by Darwyn Cooke.  This is a sequel to The Hunter which is also a great book, and I suggest both of these books.  Parker is hunting down members of The Outfit to get revenge for messing with his life.  The style of the book has that classic noir style, and Cooke illustrated the book to keep with that them, and it works perfectly for this book.


Now for the classic books or trying to get the new people turned to into a comic book nerd.


Y: The Last Man written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Pia Guerr. Yorick Brown is for all intents and purposes the last surviving male on Earth, save for his pet money Ampersand. This series ended two years ago, and has been out in paper back volumes for awhile, but I have been enjoying the hard back collected editions. Yorick along with his bodyguard Agent 355, has been following Doctor Mann across the country and now across continents.

Pride of Baghdad written by Brian K Vaughan as well.  During the bombings of Baghdad, a group of lines escape the city zoo and this story follows them around the city while giving them human qualities.  Based on a true story of some animals, this like the Y: The Last Man is not a traditional superhero comic book and is easily accessible to non-comic book readers.

 If you like either of the two most widely know superheroes around, then you may like the next three books.  All three are by the team of Jeph Loeb writing and Tim Sale illustrating.  Superman: Man for All Seasons, Batman: Long Halloween, and its sequel Batman: Dark Victory.  Superman is less about him being a superhero, but more about him dealing with the repercussions of being a superhero.  Batman Long Halloween centers around the crime families of Gotham, and the Holiday Killer, and also the origins of Two-Face.  Dark Victory is the follow-up with the crime families struggling after the events of Long Halloween, and then the Hang-Man Killer killing cops throughout the year.  There is classic Batman stories here with Batman being more detective instead of just a fighter.

Sleeper  written by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Sead Phillips.  Agent Holden Carver was given superpowers by his boss in the government and then sent into a secret organization as an undercover agent. Only problem is that the only person who knew he was a double agent is now in a coma.  He struggles with not getting caught while also slipping into just accepting his fate as a supervillan as he feels that no one will ever believe him as a double agent.





Finally,  Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer and illustrated by Rags Morales and Michael Bair.  The Superheroes of the DC Universe are in a crisis because family members of heroes are being killed. The JLA come together to try and hunt down the killer. One of the better "DC Crisis" stories, and a definite for and DC fan out there, or any who enjoyed shows like the JLA Unlimited TV Series.

First Post

First Day. First Post.  Still working on everything, name, location, etc. I hope to put up at least something once a month, preferably once a week, but I'm sure it will take a bit for me to get into.

Hoping to post about comics and comics in NOLA.   Local comics, and comic writers and artist, and maybe some comic book movies.

It is a good time to be a comic book nerd in New Orleans.  Not only do you have a number of movie filming here, like Green Lantern, Red, The Expendables, Jonah Hex (even if not all that great), then talk of the third Nolan Batman here, but right around the corner is Wizard World New Orleans, then NOLA Comic Con a few months later.

This is the first year Wizard World is coming to NOLA, and they seem to be bring a hell of a group.  Adam West and Burt Ward, Billy Dee Williams (Lando for the none Star Wars crowd out there), Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters' Winston) to just name a few movie/television stars.  Of course there is also at least six Buffy actors showing up as well.  I'm not even sure where to start off with the comic writers and artists.  Semi local guys (from Lafayette, LA) are Kody Chamberlain who is currently creator, writer and artist on SWEETS: A New Orleans Crime Series, and then Rob Guillory who is the artist for the Eisner Award winning CHEW (If you haven picked this up yet, you should. the writer John Layman is also going to be there). Rounding out the local crowd is Kurt Amacker, who is based in New Orleans, and his work on Dead Souls and Immortal: 60.  Phil Jimenez, David Mack, Mike Grell, Micheal Golden, Renee Witterstaetter, Cameron Stewart, and of course Rob Liefeld, and that is just to name a few.

For a full list check out the website: Wizard World New Orleans - Last weekend of January

Then we will be following that that up in May with the NOLA Comic Con.  This will be the 3rd year that Ronnie Prudhomme at Media Underground Comics will having this Comic Con, and this will be the first year it has moved downtown, and will be at The Westin at Canal Place.  Wizard World has teamed up with Nola Comic Con and will hopefully be helping with some special guest, but as far as I know, no one has been announced yet. 

More information can be found here. NOLA Comic Con