We're going to try something different this week. Seeing as how it was the slowest of slow weeks for me (seriously, nothing came out for me), what say we keep the review tradition alive by reviewing one of them books without pictures.

It's okay to be scared, I am too.




BOOK REVIEW:

In The Belly of the Fail Whale: How Twitter Changed My Life in One Year
by Rob Gokee

If you've ever wondered what Twitter is all about, the most effective ways to use it, or just have an unnatural hatred of pants, then this is the book for you. Rob illustrates through humor and heartbreak what it takes to really gain a following on the internets favorite micro-blog site.

The book is half How-to, half memoir as Rob takes us through his first year on Twitter. He started, as most do, to make connections and further his music composer career, but after his long term girlfriend broke up with him, it became an outlet for his feelings. And wouldn't you know it, people actually cared about what he was writing.

The secret to Twitter, he says, is to be a real person. Join in conversations, say what you feel, and generally have fun with it, and eventually you'll gain those followers you desperately want. He actually paints a really nice picture of Twitter that even a devout Twitter-hater like me can appreciate. Hell, he almost makes me want to sign up...

Almost.

While I haven't finished the book yet, so far it's fantastic. It's written in a breezy casual tone that makes you feel like your in the midst of a conversation rather than a lecture and it's genuinely funny throughout. So if you're bothered by your lack of Twitter followers or just want to read a fun story about triumphing over technology, you should totally check it out.

You can get it from Amazon as either an ebook or physical copy. You should really indulge in a copy, the man really needs to buy some pants.

In the meantime, you can read more about Rob at robgokee.com or just go yell at him on

Monday, June 28, 2010

Getting Ready For War!

Late last week Marvel announced their next big crossover: The Chaos War.

Picking up on the plot threads from the past few years of The Incredible Hercules, The Chaos War has my favorite immortal face off against the returning chaos god, Mikaboshi who was last seen subjugating the Skull's pantheon for his own gain. But the good times don't stop there! Herc isn't facing off against this big threat by his lonesome; he's assembling a brand-new God Squad. The squad will boast the membership of heavy hitters like Venus and the Silver Surfer, obscure 90s heroes like Sersi, and my personal favorite: Galactus!

Given their past, I'm VERY excited to see Galactus and Herc meet up again. Here's hoping it'll live up to it, if not with the drinking, then definitely with the awesomeness.

I can't wait until October!

Weekend Matinee: R.O.T.O.R.

It's hard to describe a movie like R.O.T.O.R. Not the plot mind you, but what it's like to watch it.

R.O.T.O.R. is a Robocop/Terminator ripoff from the mid eighties, that golden era when you could get anything distributed as long as there was something on the tape. It follows a police scientist (with the most badass name ever, Michael ColdSteel) who gets framed for murder by the department's newest robot enforcer.

As a conisuier of bad 80s genre movies, I own this and try to convince everyone I know to watch it. Once you fall into it's rhythm, the movie is utterly fantastic with it's over-the-top ridiculousness, however that's the problem. It's not like one of those typical bad 80s genre flicks that just hits the ground running, this one likes to takes its time. And then some!

So here's the clip for this week. Like the movie, this one is a slow burn, but if you let it develop you'll understand the forgotten masterpiece it truly is.



COLDSTEEL FOREVA!

Mini Invasion!

It was a banner week for Minimates this week.

Minimates, for the uninitiated, are two inch block figures from Art Asylum that cover a whole slew of different licenses. My favorite, and they're longest running, line is the Marvel stuff (shocker!).

This week saw the duel release of both Series 36 (The comic Iron Man wave) AND the new Toys R Us wave (basically the same stuff, but with a couple of new figures) leaving me light in the wallet, but heavy with chunks of plastic. It's one of the best waves they've had in a while, full of great new sculpted pieces, obscure characters, and genuine surprises. Here are my personal faves:


1 - LOCKJAW!

You may have remember I was stoked for this figure when it was announced, so it's no surprise that I'm excited to finally get my mitts on him. I'm so utterly shocked that they made him and so impressed by the results. The expression, the sculpting, the everything about him is wonderfully done. Art Asylum has done a great job of working with these standard block figures to pull out surprises like this one. If you can find him t TRU, you should totally pick him up.


2- Stilt-Man?

Talk about an obscure character that I was sure they'd never make. Stilt-Man was, hands down, the best part of this week's releases. I don't know what it is about him: his goofy appearance, the shiny silver, or the fact that he just TOWERS over the other minimates, he's just down right awesome.



I can't keep my eyes off of him, I constantly want to pose and repose him. He's totally my favorite thing right now, and I'm kinda worried about what that means...


3- Crimson Dynamo

To look at this figure from the outside, it's pretty rad. He's big, menacing, and has that amazing Vacu-sealed shiny red armor that just makes him pop off the shelf. It's about time Iron Man had some quality villains to be posed against.

So what makes this figure so special? Why did I pull him out as an example of how great this wave was? Let me pop that helmet off and show you.


IT'S JOSEPH STALIN!

Like it wouldn't have been hard enough covering up that fantastic 'stache, they had to go make him look like one of the defining leaders of the modern world. It's like getting two villains in one!

This is, far and away, my favorite toy easter egg of all time.

Futurama, How I've missed you!

In case you're a horrible geek and missed it, the brand new zombie season of Futurama premiered tonight on Comedy Central and it was great! Beyond great really, which is way better than I expected.


I don't know about you, but my expectations were severely hampered by the less than stellar direct to DVD movies. The first one was fine, but then it felt like the finale the show needed, it was the ones that followed that really languished. The problem was they were trying to split the difference between a single 88 minute movie and four 22 minute episodes for air. The result was a horrible mess of storytelling.

Luckily, their new deal with Comedy Central has them producing single 22-minute episodes like God intended, and they're glorious. They're making episodes like they never stopped. The jokes come quick, the plots are both ridiculous and sensible, and everything ties together. The future's looking bright for this season.


Here's hoping they can find an audience this time...

The Bill June 23, 2010

Are you ready to hear my ranting on this week's books? Well too bad because it's time for you're new favorite comic blog reviews: The Bill!



Best of the Week:
Thunderbolts #145
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Kev Walker

When I was through with this book, I couldn't believe that it was only 22 pages. It's been forever since a book truly felt packed with action, and Jeff Parker really pulled out all the stops with this one. Parker has done in two issues what some writers **couBENDISgh** would stretch into six to ten.

In this issue, The Thunderbolts: fight Baron Zemo, learn it was all a test, meet the new warden (a laid up, and newly armless John Walker), get a mission briefing, and fight some Asgardian trolls. It felt epic when compared to most of the other books on the stands.

It also doesn't hurt that Parker handles all the characters amazingly well. Everyone sounds more in-character than they have for years, from Moonstone's eagerness to please to Songbird's desire to be seen as a hero. Even with all of the crazy action happening, Parker was still able to cram in the tiny character moments that make reading the book so worth it.

This is, hands down, the best Thunderbolts has been in a while. From the gorgeous art from Kev Walker, to Jeff Parker's deft storytelling, it's quickly becoming my favorite book of the month.



Not-Quite-The-Best of the Week:
Avengers #2
Writer: Brian Bendis
Artist: John Romita Jr.


First things first: This is a really solid read; a lot happens, there's a couple of fights, some cool cameos (Spider-Girl!), and a great reveal on the last page. If I had to compare this to say, Dark Avengers #2, it's night and day. Avengers #2 is totally old-school Avengers adventures through the pen of Bendis. And that's kinda the problem.

I know I give Bendis a lot of shit, and I don't REALLY mean to. He has really solid ideas, really solid characterization, and normally great character moments. This issue it all became a bit much. Somewhere along the way all the fun quips became just snarky and mean.

The main offender in this was Tony Stark. Tony's a tough character to get right, he needs to be equal parts suave, smart, and arrogant without seeming like too much of a dick. In this issue, he just seemed like a dick. From his dismissive attitude when he meets Noh-Varr (The Protector), to insisting Noh-Varr work for him, Tony seemed like more of a jerk than he should have. It just kinda rubbed me the wrong way.

In addition to this, everyone stopped to talk about how time was broken for five pages. So, spoilers, the future Hulk gets angry and breaks time somehow, which no one quite understands. FOR FIVE PAGES. I get that it's a hard concept to grasp, but it just came across as... repetitive. I kinda got annoyed, if you couldn't tell.

Aside from all of that, it was a pretty good issue though and I like this new 'cool comic book stuff happens every issue' mode Bendis is in. He should keep it up.




And there you go. If you want to know about my other two books (Franken-Castle or Secret Warriors), my new minimates (Stilt-Man rocks my face!), or just want to see how I'm doing (fine, thank you for asking), drop me a comment. Otherwise, I'll see you (figuratively) next time.

The Hercules Everyone Hates

The GirlFriend and I have a constant argument about Hercules.

To her, Hercules is Kevin Sorbo, a fun loving guy who goes on wacky adventures with his pal, Iolaus, in the annuls of syndicated television. I argue that Hercules is the beer-loving, womanizing, Prince of Power from the Marvel Universe. I have yet to make her see the errors of her ways.

But there's one thing we do agree on: Disney's Hercules is the worst.


Hercules was released in that dark period of Disney animation between The Lion King and... well I guess present day. As such, neither the GirlFriend or myself really paid attention to it when it came out.

Well, that's not really true. To be honest, we both confessed that we wanted to see it, but the combination of bad reviews, Disney Fatigue, and getting older just kept us from the theater. I remember always admiring the design of the movie, it's strong angular lines and stylized approach; it was a nice departure from the normal Disney fare. I was also really intrigued by the strong male hero, because most of the Disney movies were for girls, and all I had to root for was Aladdin (which isn't a bad thing). It was these expectations that set up my ultimate disappointment in the final product.


When it comes down to it, the problem with Disney's Hercules is that it's not Hercules. Herc, traditionally, is a man of two worlds (the gods and the mortals) who uses his extraordinary abilities to sleep with as many women as he can while dealing with a bitchy step-mother (Hera). Meanwhile, the Disney version has Herc as a god who is stolen away, then raised by kindly farmers who instill him with a foundation of good, before becoming a hero to the masses so he can rise to godhood again. To be fair, I realize that the Disney version couldn't be a womanizer, or be the by-product of an affair, but it seems more Superman than Hercules.


Disney didn't stop at just getting the character wrong, they ignored Hercules' greatest feats. I don't know about you, but when I think about Hercules I think about the 12 labors. The stables, the apples, fighting the lion (The only lion in Disney's version is a throwaway joke!), all that, that's what makes Hercules Hercules. The Disney version opts to forgo all that to make up a story about Hades freeing the imprisoned Titans so he can topple Zeus and his kingdom.

As a quick aside, I feel really bad for Hades as a character in fiction. Talk about getting a bad rap for nothing. Poor guy is given the choice between ruling the seas or ruling the underworld, and he's forever demonized for it. Just because he's the ruler of the underworld doesn't mean he's Satan! It's not like if you're a good Greek you'll end up running around Mt. Olympus. Everyone who dies goes to the underworld and it's his job to make sure the place stays open. He needs a better PR agent. But anyway...


To top off their trifecta of terrible, the animation is just uninspired in Disney's Hercules. Aside from the fantastic Motown inspired Muse musical sequences scattered throughout, the whole movie just feels lazy. Medium shot after medium shot of the characters standing and talking with very little dynamism. I'm not asking for crazy Anime stuff, it would just be nice to see a little variation here and there.


In the end, it's a movie best left on the video store shelf (or the Netflix storeroom, if that's how you roll) to drift further into obscurity. That said, I don't think I'll ever get "Go The Distance" outta my head.

Weekend Matinee: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

You should have known this was coming.

Seeing that it's Father's Day, it's the perfect time to revisit this classic, no-holds-barred father-son relationship. Luke comes home from his studies to find this creepy old guy manhandling his friends, so he takes him to task. Lightsabers and shattered glass ensue until our man in black corners our intrepid hero.

But really, you should know all that. If you don't, you really need to get your geek in shape and get watching.



The Moral: Do what your father says, or he will destroy you.

Now go call your Dad, I'm sure he could use the break after all the chores he's doing today.

The Most Brutal Mash Up Ever

What do you get when you mix the heaviest of Heavy Metal with an girliest of girlie 80's pop? Pure awesomeness.


Of course, there is no way that Jem is more brutal than Nathan Explosion. I'm just saying...

image via Diana Sprinkle

The End of FrankenCastle

Remember a while back when I asked why The Punisher didn't look all Franken-Castle-y in the promo images for Shadowland? Well, I got my answer in this months solicitation:


FRANKEN-CASTLE #21
Written by RICK REMENDER
Pencils & Cover by DAN BRERETON
The shocking conclusion of the FrankenCastle era! After his brutal struggle to kill Daken in Tokyo, the Punisher is in rough shape. In order to restore his health, hacker comrade Henry Russo sends Frank to the nearest remote place he can find -- Monster Island. However, as his body heals, Frank’s mind begins to fade into madness. Someone needs to take him down. Someone named Elsa Bloodstone.
40 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99



Dammit Marvel! Why do you have to take away the things I love?

I knew this was going to happen eventually, but did it have to happen so soon? The book's been so much fun, I don't want it to go back to the same ol' boring format of Frank as a vigilante. This was so much better; so much more imaginative; so much more fun. Look at this face and try to deny it:


You were taken from us too soon Franken-Castle, but you'll never be forgotten. Your battles against a Victorian Cyborg Monster Hunter and his Japanese Monster Killer Squad will go down in the annuals of comic history as some of the greatest times ol' Frank Castle ever had.

And ten years from now when they turn Frank into a werewolf, I'll be there to remind them of the good times; The Franken-times.

Sigh...