Comics Collector in Hot Water

I wrote about this on one of my other blogs.  I’m not surewhy I didn’t put it here.

The Oscars

The Oscar nominees came out today. While for the most part I’m not surprised or upset by the choices, I am horrified that The Dark Knight was snubbed for best picture. When pieces of crap like Titanic and Chicago can win, but The Dark Knight is locked out of contention it makes the Oscars look like the Grammy’s or the Emmy’s.

Essentially I believe the Academy has lost all the credibility it built up with last year’s win for No Country for Old Men.

Captain America #42

Apparently issue #42 of Captain America marks the end of the current story arc. First off, I can’t believe that I’ve just finished a forty-two issue story arc in this day in age. It’s been absolutely wonderful. The art, writing, and consistency of this run has reminded me why I love reading comic books. If you haven’t read the issue, go to Marvel’s website and preview it here. I don’t want to give too much away considering that the Red Skull/Agent 13 story line ties up and we discover the fate of The Grand Director (also known as the Cap of the 1950s). The important things that come out of this include:

• James continues to struggle with the idea of being Captain America, but he also starts to get it.
• The Black Widow and the Falcon continue to be treated as quality characters.
• James is going to be Captain America for the foreseeable future.

Do I miss Steve Rogers?  Yes I do.  Am I excited to see where this title is going to go now (especially since Thor met James in the Secret Invasion series)?  You bet.

If you want to read more about this issue check out reviews:

• here
• here
• and here 

Where’s Your Burpcloth?

That’s the big question in my house for the 15th straight week as Sean continues to resemble Linda Blair. This week I’ve actually put a decent dent in my giant stack of comics, watched some Battlestar Galactica, and continued to listen to the new Jakob Dylan album while also listening to the new Mudhoney album (I wrote a tiny bit about it here). So before the baby spits up all over me again, let’s begin…

In comics this week there are a few good things to note…

• LOTRKing gives us a Marvel year in review. Or at least the year so far. I half agree with his X-Men synopsis but can’t argue with the rest of his article. He also digs back into the archives and reviews Fantastic Four #124 from 1972.
• The AVClub features a lengthy comics panel
• Electricity & Lust pointed me towards Peter Travers’ review of The Dark Knight and it sounds quite amazing.
• Zach Smith had a cool free comic called Satan P.I. on his website (it showed up in my reader) but the link has been disabled. When it comes back I’ll link to it, it’s really sharp and fun!

Finally in comics, I believe the comics world is off in Chicago (or about to return). I know the guys at my local shop, Ultimate Comics (as seen in the new Marvel book 1985) are there. I’ve also found the Invinsible Superblog.

In television, thanks to Cinematically Correct for posting the preview of the new season of 24. The question is, will they sucker me in again?

In books and other misc. words, a few things I noticed this week…

• David Guterson, the author of Snow Falling on Cedars has published The Other. The Times reviews it here as well.
• One-Story posted some interesting stuff this week. Their intern released a quite interesting list of his top-10 stories. This was in response to a top ten list published by EW which spurred a discussion here.
• The Times talks about a new e-book reader.

Electricity & Lust has two interesting posts this week. Their Diggin post talks about the New Hold Steady (among other stuff), and they provide the usual great mix of links per usual. Many weeks they help me keep up on stuff in ten minutes instead of searching for hours. I’d add them to my RSS if I were you.

And finally, George Carlin died a week ago. I’ve posted a few thoughts from others below, but my favorite was when Howard Stern asked Gilbert Gottfried if he had any bad stories about George Carlin and he did. Apparently George told Gilbert to get the hell away from him and to leave him alone once.

• Cinematically Correct mentions it here.
• The AVClub here.
• The New York Times here.

Quiet Week

Once I finished the The Corrections it’s been a pretty quiet week. I tried to plow through a bit of my pile of old New Yorkers and basically picked over articles and stories. Nothing too exciting. So here goes nothing:

In short-fiction, I did read a few things. Like I said, I’m chipping away at a pile of New Yorkers and a few One-Story issues. I also started The Boat by Nam Le (so far it’s fantastic).

• Alice Munro’s story Free Radicals was pretty good despite an easy ending. Why you should never open the door to strangers.
• If You Can Hear Me Thinking by Kiara Brinkman (from One-Story) was a great story as well.
• Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice the first story in The Boat was great. Interestingly it deals with writer’s block and the act of writing. It’s really a great story that sometimes makes you think more about what isn’t fully explained or said.

In not-so-short fiction, Shannon tells you to go read The Hobbit.

In music, Guns ‘N Roses’ long awaited album was leaked for like 13 minutes this week on the interwebs. I write a little about it over here.

• Also, I keep meaning to link over to Plain or Pan? a really great music website from a Scot with a huge collection of stuff.

In television, the AVClub interviews Billy West of Futurama and Ren & Stimpy fame. I, however, was introduced to him via the Howard Stern show where he did such imitations as Marge Schott and The Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley.

In links, the following sub-finds…

• I found Wordspy a site that introduces you to newly coined phrases.
• In art, I found a site this week that gives you cheap options for art. It’s called 20×200 and gives you the option of buying a $20, $200, or $2,000 version of the same piece. My problem is that I think some of the pictures from my vacation are better and I can’t figure out how to sell them here!
• Not so much art as photography, I did try a very cool site affiliated with Flickr this week. It’s called MOO and enables you to make postcards, notecards, mini-cards, etc. from your own pics stored on Flickr. I’ll let you know what I think when I get the first pics back.

I’m behind on comics and don’t have anything to report this week. Hopefully I’ll attack the pile this week and have something to report back on.  Hope all are having a good summer.

Happy Mother’s Day

Before I say anything about anything this week, Happy Mother’s Day to Shannon, your Junior Grumpy Future Comic Book Nerdloves you!

I’ve got to start this post with Comics. While my pile has been growing and growing and I’m WAY behind on comments, Marvel’s Secret Invasionhas been fantastic. The two issues they’ve released have been the kind of comics I have always loved to read; full of surprise and history and action. The tie-ins have been pretty awesome too. Here are a few reviews to check out:

• Mighty Avengers #13tells us a little of what Nick Fury has been up to.
• New Avengers #40tells us some of what the Skrulls have been up to.

I have not seen Iron Man yet (babies will do that) but here is some news about the thor movie.

The AV Club has noticed Ryan Adams and his blog.

The Philadelphia sports-loving Bizzaro Jerry has put up his weekly Lost post. It’s good stuff, which can be confirmed by Shannon’s out-loud laughter and praise while reading from her perch on the couch. His Bizzaro Jerry status (or mine depending on which universe you live in) can be confirmed somewhat with his Speed Racer post. I’m kind of happy to see this movie fail, the commercials make it look worse than I Love Trouble.

Electricty & Lust has released its links of most anticipated summer movies. Not sure why Hollywood has redone Short Circuit (this time without this week’s Howard Stern highlight – The Incredibly Hung Steve Guttenberg) but I can agree with the other links. There’s also some good stuff on Electricity & Lust’s Linkemonypost.

We finished HBO’s In Treatment and I have to say that, much like life, the last episode was full of sound and fury, yadda yadda yadda. It was a really interesting nine week experiment in television endurance and I wonder if HBO will try another season of it. Like life, the series showed how messed up people are without making it all tidy or giving us much of a resolution.

I’m reading Franzen’s The Corrections and so far it’s great stuff. I still have a mountain of New Yorkers and comic books to climb.

Another Week Another Post

May means spring is here in North Carolina, the summer movie season is starting out, and another week has passed meaning I need to update this site before my readers get bored and go elsewhere to read about God knows what. So what’s up this week? Well, let’s jump right in…

In books, I finished Neighbors by Thomas Berger.  What a demented book.  It’s a great novel covering the events of one night when new people move in next door to Earl Keese.  Harry and Ramona then proceed to torment Earl in a way that makes me (even more than now) want to never speak or look at my neighbors again.  You can buy it here at Powells or here at Amazon.

Continuing in literature, One-Story magazine has published issue #102.

In pop culture, Electricity & Lust is back to the general pop culture posts. Also, thanks to Electricity & Lust for pointing us to a trailer to the new Hulk movie. I might be one of the few people excited about seeing it.

Also, Iron Man has come out. I’m looking forward to seeing that too!

Cinematically Correct wrote his weekly Lost thoughts. I’m very jealous as he went to see Jack White and the boys in concert Thursday night.

In the interwebs, Google has added new artist themes to the options of stuff you can add to your iGoogle page. It’s some asshole artists and some good stuff. It’s at least worth checking out.

In technology, I saw a couple of cool things this week. Most are for the road warrior. They include:

• The Belkin Mouse Trap, a nifty way to store the little stuff from your desk and your mouse to zip up and take with you.
• Also from Belkin, a way to add more USB ports.
• Finally, a very cool speaker for the IPod. It also appears to be a good solution for various Sirius radios with an AUX jack but no speakers.

What else? A few loose ends…

• Former nerdy teen Patrick Dempsey has released what I want to nominate as the dumbest, worst movie of the year: Made of Honor. This movie sucked the last six times they made it.
• A few new comics came out this week, but Secret Invasion #2 is on the horizon for next Wednesday.

And a final word of advice for all of you out there shopping for Mother’s Day. It comes from my lovely wife Shannon who is a new mother (just 8 weeks) herself.

Don’t buy me anything for Mother’s Day that the television tells you to buy.

The Week that Was

So another week has come and gone. I haven’t really absorbed a lot of media this week. It’s been a lot of watching the Yankees lose and watching my TiVo crash over and over again thanks to Directv’s shitty software updates (the word on the interwebs is that it’s only happening here in central, NC). I wish two of my favorites could play nice together again. I don’t want to go back to cable but I do want to buy one of those nifty HD Tivo series 3 boxes. Anyway, I’ve read a few things, noticed a few things, and bought a few things. In no particular order, here they are:

A trip away from my usual comic book store to Chapel Hill Comics led to a puchase of Michael Chabon’s first work of non-fiction Maps and Legends. It’s gone on my giant pile of books left to read, which also includes:
In Hoboken by Christian Bauman
Signal & Noise by John Griesemer.
Summerland by Michael Chabon.
Scores of New Yorkers, piles of comics, and a few other random magazines.

Other interesting links from the week include:
The AV Club’s Comics Panel is out this week and covers a new limited run of American Splendor.
Ryan Adams continues to communicate with the world.
Issue 101 of One-Story has come out.
Thanks to Electricity & Lust for pointing out new details on Joss Whedon’s new show Dollhouse, though I do wish he would write another 100 issues of the Astonishing X-Men instead.
Save Baby Gorilla is reporting that Artie Lange will be back on the Stern show on Monday.

Ok, off to bed to read a little of my current book Neighbors by Thomas Berger. Good night!

The Week That Was

With a new baby and all, my sleep schedule is screwed up, thus my media consumption is down. WAY down. Beyond the Game Show Network feeding me a steady stream of Match Games and Super Passwords, my heavy eyelids have shortened my attention span to nearly zero. However, never fear gentle reader (and I know there’s only one of you out there), I have a few things to add to the world of the interwebs this week…

The good folks at the AV Club published their latest Comics Panel. It covers a number of things I’ve been reading, including Kick Ass (which I thought was fun) and the Fantastic Four.

This week’s Lost was pretty good. Here is a good recap from a pop culture blog that writes a lot more than I do. The nice thing is, I think the author and I share a lot of common tastes. Check out Cinematically Correct here.

Thanks to Our aforementioned friends at Cinematically Correct for also bringing the latest fun stuff from Ryan Adams to my attention to. Hopefully an album is on the way.

Also in music, The Raconteurs (Jack White’s band) announced that their second album is coming out on Tuesday. Yes, I said THIS TUESDAY. Holy surprise Batman! I can’t wait. The album will be called Consolers of the Lonely. I can’t wait! I want to go get it from my local record store but I fear with my schedule I might end up buying it off the interwebs.

I think that’s it for now.  I ordered the new Kathleen Edwards album off the interwebs and will write about it if I’m awake.  The one good thing about late night television is that I’ve seen parts of Planet of the Apes, the Blues Brothers, Animal House, etc. lately.  I saw the Blues Brothers on Cinemax and forgot the joy of that film uncensored.

Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Together

The Coen Brothers seem to be on board to produce a film version of Michael Chabon’s Yiddish Policeman’s Union. This was a very good book with the potential to be an entertaining and interesting movie. For you comic book fans, I’d heartily endorse another of Chabon’s books, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. It’s a great story set in the Golden Age and Silver Age of Comics. It’s a great read and a difficult book to put down.