Comicbook, Movies, Music & Art!

Chicago Comic Con So, I tried to make a post on Friday before I left for Chicago Comic Con, but the internet went down. It's probably better because I was only going to later post what happened later. Everything started out alright until we got to Chicago. THE TRAFFIC WAS TERRIBLE! We left early in the hopes of get to the center early and we sat in traffic for an hour and maybe moved 5 miles at best! Moral of the Story: Leave Early! Know your route and if you can if there is any construction. Now that we are past that. once We go there we saw the usually suspects of Awesome Cos-players!  We made our way around the convention center when I noticed some images by Frank Frazetta that were printed to about 24 X 36in poster sized pictures. After speaking to one of the guys for a bit he mentioned that Robert Rodriguez a friend and fan of Frank Frazetta photographed the paintings in order to help raise the funds for a gallery dedicated to Frank Frazetta that would display his worl

San Diego Comic Con (revisit) plus leaked Spider-man 2 trailer Hello once again Comic Fans! Since I posted about San Diego Comic Con last time a lot of things have developed. Zack Snyder announced Batman will be in the next Superman movie and even flirting with the idea it maybe based on Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns. I'm doubting how much this is actually going to happen due to the idea that it is a sequel to Superman and that it will precede a Justice League movie. Dark Knight Returns takes place when Bruce Wayne is in his 60's. I could talk all day about this.  The other thing that was announced was that is the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie Thanos will appear! along with Nebula, Ronan, Gamora, and the Galactic Space Empire known as the Kree! Also Glenn Close to play the leader Nova Prime head of the Nova Corps! This implies that we may see Nova and Captain Marvel. I say implies because it's not certain but it definitely leaves room for the possibi

The Wolverine It's a difficult task to condense over thirty years of a characters history and experiences down to a two hour film. Some of the best moments of the character gets glazed over, connections between character and reader also lost in translation. Arguably Wolverines best moments are in the comics and not in the films, but an attempt has been made to connect the audience to the character that is Wolverine. A character that is renown for his savagery in battle and his haphazard disregard for rules, authority, or the chain of command. He's the best at what he does and he does it the best when left alone. The comics deal with his issues and like most comics circulate around the same character defects over and over. For a reader like me that wants to see his characters develop, get past there defects and develop to their potential it becomes difficult to see this recycling in comics, but it happens. The movies are some what forced to it differently. If a character d

How We Perceive Film, TV, Comics, Video Games, Etc. Everyone has developed different expectations when it comes to comic book based movies. Some are interested in a 'True-to-the-comic' depiction of the characters or in some cases the plot (if it is derived from a particular arc). Others like to alter the characters or plot to make it fit into a general familiarity of the human condition more or less stripping them of the nuances found in the comics over the years, but sometimes necessary to condense the character down in order for it to fit into a film lasting only a couple of hours. Some care more about the film and how it is presented and how it fits into the classic understanding of film. Finally, there is another group more interested in taking the content and turning it into a film that challenges the boundaries and the average understanding of films, sometimes this doesn't sit well with general audiences until it develops a regular audience, examples; Tim Burton,

San Diego Comic Con! Well, San Diego Comic Con start yesterday 7/18/13, and it's causing me to think back to last year when I went. It is one of the most intense weekends I have had. San Diego Comic Con is the mecca of Comic Cons, unveiling new movie, games and other media related events. Actually to use the word comic when describing these cons is a bit of a misnomer, these events have more then just comics or comic related stuff but rather it should be referred to as a Universal Media Convention. Along with the above mentioned events Celebrities show up to connected with fans, taking photo ops, signing photos, or simply answering fans questions during panel discussions. Outside of these events artists line up to show their work to the industries leading professionals. Companies debut latest designs in software and equipment pertaining to all artists ranging from Painters, Illustrators to 3D Modeling and Practical Creature Creation, these events are for all artists. Last ye

Pacific Rim I saw Pacific Rim in IMAX 3D and unless your a real fan of Monsters or Giant Robots and will watch it no matter what IMAX 3D is my recommended form of watching it. Critics have had some good things to say about it. With all of the films high fantasy positives I can understand that it maybe a bit too much for some people. The films cameras focus in on fast and some times mangled up fights between the robots and monsters, these fights typically take place at night. As rule each shot of an effect shouldn't last more then 30 frames. This helps prevent the eye from recognizing it as an effect. So most directors will stick to this rule and in a slug fests like this it may force some of the sequences to appear blurred or visually over stimulating. There is something else to be said about the results of this technique, when applied correctly the over whelming feeling can lead the the audience to feel the relief of making it through a battle well fought when the heroes re

Gay Spider-man in Movies I was reading about how they may make Spider-man gay in the new movies. Commenters wrote how it was wrong on the bases that he was not gay in the comics, which I understand. However this is the second incarnation of Spider-Man in the movies and they didn't make him gay in the first installation. So what does it matter if he is gay the second time around? Recently we have heard about some people arguing against Johnny Depp's interpretation of Tonto in the recent Lone Ranger movie. Producers, Directors and Actors are artists and they experiment with style, content and substance to bring us a unique experience, not a carbon copy of a previous work but sometimes their own impression of the source material however abstract. We relate to these characters in our own way and sometimes because of that we may be a bit deeply involved and so it strikes at ourselves when someone changes them. Hollywood has always been into marketing the

Comics from the Year 2000! I continued to collect comics very casually, picking up a comic here and there between 97' to around 2002. Nothing really caught my attention that much. Around 2003 I went to my first comic con in Chicago and it was energetic! Burst with the culture of artists. The usual companies were set up like Marvel and DC but also some new companies like Top Cow and Cross-Gen. Filmmakers and Video game creators, I even met Stan Winston! The whole experience was an awesome and amazing experience, it renewed my interest in comics.  So I started collecting again and met some other collectors at a new job I had recently started and we would talk a bit about them. Particularly a comic named House of M this became my new Infinity Gauntlet . The story involved mainly the Avengers and the X-Men but effected the whole of the Marvel world. Scarlett Witch who is crazy like a fox alters reality recreating it to favor mutant-kind with her father Magneto as the King of

Superman        With the excitement good and bad of the new Superman: Man of Steel movie released on the June, 14th, 2013 I feel compelled to write a bit about Superman: comics and movies. As a kid I watched the Christopher Reeves Superman movies and I my first comic had Superman in it (see My first comic), I even had a giant sized Superman comic that had a fold out poster of Krypton that was tacked to my wall for most of my youth. As a young kid he was cool, but in a way I think kids have a tendency to notice. Superman is colorful: Kids notice bright colors, He was mostly blue: usually a young boys favorite color, He is super strong and super fast, He can fly! plus he has bonus powers like heat/lazer/fire vision and freeze things with a single breath. He always defeats the bad guy and has basically one weakness. This is an ideal super hero, un-defeat-able. However he wasn't my favorite, but he was the one I was familiar with first and I liked him! Until I discovered B

Collecting Comics, Popular, Independent and Other      I visited D & B Comics many times over the Summer and purchased a lot of comics. I would often rummage through the boxes looking for random and interesting titles. I ran into a comic that really intrigued me for sometime, but it became more difficult to find. The name of the comic was Critters . This particular issue included a LP with a song written by Alan Moore named Sinister Ducks and on the reverse side had a song by Teddy Payne and the Bluebears Growing up with 80's cartoons I was used to anamorphic characters and themes. Critters was packed with them and this was the particular appeal. The created the comic in a effort to appeal to the growing fans of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Two stories stand out as being the most fun for me to read. The first was Birthright.  Birthright was created by Steve Gallachi and featured a dystopian world which at first glance appea

A Bit More About Silver Surfer          I continued to read Silver Surfer well after Infinity Gauntlet. Two issues stand out as my favorite. One occurred during Infinity Gauntlet, Silver Surfer and Thanos fight against each other in a seperate realm where the are outfitted like knights with swords and horses. Not only is it drawn well but the battle between the two is quite epic!             The next Silver Surfer comic that I liked a lot was of Silver Surfer fighting himself! Some where along the line Silver Surfer finds himself in the underworld along with Captain Marvel. There he and Captain Marvel fight dead warriors that claim to be people he killed once leading Galactus to their planets. As they fight they see a tent of the commander of the dead legion and Silver Surfer and Captain Marvel fight their way to it. Upon entering Silver Surfer discovers the shadow version of himself!               This issue recaps all the personal problems Silver Surfer has with h

The Comic that got me Hooked! Part: 2 That Summer I got a job selling candy door to door. It was easy and it was something I could earn a lot of cash doing (by a lot I mean $15 to $20 a day, that's a lot for a 13 year old!). When I would return to Standale I would take what would become my usual walk to the comic store and stock up on comics. I was collecting Silver Surfer with the intent of learning why my heroes were scattered over one of the covers dead. The next time I went to the comic shop I was determined to collect more of the comics leading up to the a fore mentioned comic and collect what I had missed after (the first time I saw this story arc was during the Winter). After gathering up the comics I had known a little more of the story. The Antagonist was a classic villain to the hero Silver Surfer known as Thanos. He had acquired the Infinity Gems through some means and united them into gauntlet that gave him the power of a God. Some of you reading this will know

The Comic that got me Hooked!             We would go over to my Grandparents house for most holidays and like kids do they either bring toys, books, drawing stuff or some kind of video game to pass the time. During this time this is a chance for Mothers & Fathers and Aunts & Uncles to catch up and talk, meanwhile this is an opportunity for cousins to see each other and have fun or make some trouble (we did both). One particular gathering my cousin and I took a walk I remember the sun had set early so it may have been Thanksgiving or Christmas. We had walked about a mile and half to a 7-11 convenience store. Typically we would stop into places like this and browse the magazine rack, my cousin being a couple years older would tend to look at the latest issues of Popular Science or Popular Mechanics and I would go to the comics. Truthfully we would go through all the magazines picking up on the latest trends or entertainment.   So, I'm browsing the different comi

Exploring the Comic World!      I lived in Grandvill e , Mi. whic h is the west side of Michigan at an apartment complex named Wimbel don (they had a tennis court). I lived there between the grades of 3rd through 7th. During this time is when I got my fir st comic and casually collected G.I. Joe, not because they were comics but because it was G.I. Joe! and I faithfully watched the cartoon and collected the figures through out my youth.  On the n orth east corner of 44th and Wilson was a D &W supermarket or Food Library if you 're Skwisgaar Skwigelf. This was the place I had collected my G.I. Joe comics, but then we moved. We moved further east on 44th st. into the school district of Kelloggsville (Yes, I thought it had something to do with cereal too! ) in Wyoming. We lived in an apartment complex called Wyoming Green ( pretty original ) an d again on the northeast corner of 44th st . and this time Clyde Park Ave. there was a convenience store named Dair y ma