It's another wonderfully wintry week here at Exfanding HQ, with more of the ice and sleet and slush than the good old fashioned snow. Combine the fact that I have an hour-plus drive to work each morning with the fact that my car is very not good in the snow, and you get an interesting week.
But, hey. At least it's Wednesday, and at least there are comics to buy.
Aside from my weather woes (they're saying more snow here Thursday night into Friday, and then there's the possibility of Something coming by Monday morning), I'm having one of those weird overall weeks. I have quite a bit of work that needs to be done, which is actually good for me, because it keeps me focused. But it's a lot of work, nonetheless.
I'm also working on a few things--side projects, as Nathaniel likes to call them--that are a whole lot of fun, and pretty exciting. Who knows where they'll end up. At this point, I've pretty much trained myself to never get too excited over anything, especially things that have the potential to be very exciting.
I know. It doesn't make any sense. Welcome to my brain.
I've also managed to fit in quite a bit of reading time this week, which is nice. Usually, I cram as much as I possibly can into the weekend--sometimes reading a month's worth of comics in one sitting before moving on to that novel I've been meaning to read.
But this week I started--and finished--a pretty unexpected biography. As any (even casual) wrestling fans knows,
Mick Foley is one of the all-time great characters in the game. And his latest book (he has several previous memoirs that sold incredibly well and that I might go track down) is a great read.
I've been an on and off fan of professional wrestling for most of my life, really getting into it at two different times--first, when I was very young and Hulk Hogan was the biggest thing ever. And second, when I was in high school, and Stone Cold Steve Austin was the biggest thing ever.
Just for the record, though, Shawn Michaels is my favorite wrestler. Always was, always will be.
But Mick Foley--or Mankind, or Cactus Jack, or Dude Love, as he's been known in the past--is a very close second. I even got to "meet" Mick back at the short-lived Wizard World Boston (which was my very first convention, by the way). I say "meet" because I just happened to walk by his table (there was a huge line of people waiting to get his autograph) at the exact moment that he looked up. Right at me, actually.
I was just wandering the convention, not really sure where to go or what to do next, and I certainly didn't expect to see Mick Foley--the Hardcore Legend of pro wrestling--staring right at me. So what do I do? I say, loudly and with a smile, "Hey! You're Mick Foley!" And, for some reason, I wave at him.
And Mick Foley smiles and gives me a patented Mick Foley Thumbs-Up. And says, "Yep."
True story.
Right. How'd we get here again?
Oh, yes. Foley's latest book,
Countdown to Lockdown, an autobiography detailing the last two-plus years in the career of one of wrestling's biggest names.
It was great. Foley's writing style is engaging and funny, and at times, beautiful.
He talks about in-ring stuff, "inside baseball" backstage stuff, family stuff, you name it. He's frank and open and he talks about things that most wrestlers wouldn't touch with a barbed wire baseball bat. But Foley dives right in and provides one of the most thoughtful theories on steroid use that I've ever read.
I played baseball for a long time, and unfortunately, I know many players who decided to go the steroid route, including some close friends. So that chapter alone was worth the price of admission for me.
If you're a wrestling fan--or, like me, if you watched at some point and know names like Foley and Undertaker and Jeff Jarrett and Kurt Angle--then I'd say this is some must-read material. I bet we have a few wrestling fans out there reading this, and if so, please leave a comment. I've been meaning to do a longer post on wrestling at some point here, but I'd like to know that there's someone out there with some interest in the subject.
Okay, okay. Back to the mission at hand--new comics. You have to admit, though, as far as Alex Tangents go, that one was pretty good.
First up this week, we have another book from Image Comics that's making some waves in the shops and online. Yet another sellout from the publisher,
27 is a new series about a musician and...uh. Well, that's actually all I know about the series. The reason? Issue one sold out instantly, and very few stores (read: none, in my area) even ordered a single copy.
Plenty of copies of number one popped up on eBay (for $15) on the day of release, and there's been a pretty steady stream of them on the auction site ever since. Last week, issue two shipped, and most stores picked up a few copies after the buzz for issue one had officially made it a "hot" book.
I made sure to reserve a copy of issue two from my shop, and now I have issue two of a series before finding a copy of issue one. But, hopefully, that will be rectified today, as Image releases a second printing of that elusive first issue.
For anyone interested, here's the solicitation information from the publisher:
Hendrix, Cobain, Joplin, Morrison. All died at age 27. In 27, and all-new miniseries from Image Comics and Shadowline, a gifted rock musician fights to make it to his 28th birthday.
This four-issue series is written by Charles Soule (Strongman), drawn by the brilliant Renzo Podesta (Hard Drive, Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom), and features gorgeous covers by W. Scott Forbes (FORGETLESS). It will be published in the larger Golden Age format.
In 27, the "27 Club" admits only the most brilliant musicians and artists--and kills them dead in their 27th year. Will Garland is a famous rock guitarist, secretly unable to play for months due to a neurological disorder afflicting his left hand. He's also 27. With mad scientists, long dead rock legends and cosmic entities in his way, can he make it to 28?Sounds good, and I'm looking forward to seeing what all the hype is about.
Next up, we have a book near and dear to my heart. From Dark Horse, volume 10 of
The Goon ships today. Entitled "Death's Greedy Comeuppance," this volume veers a bit off the "continuity" trail, focusing instead on two one-shot issues of
The Goon proper, and a 3-issue mini-series featuring supporting cast favorite, Buzzard.
The two one-shots featured here include the 10th anniversary special issue and the amazing "silent issue," which has (you guessed it) no words.
Here's the official blurb from Dark Horse about the collection:
Celebrate ten years of The Goon with this collection of two hilarious Goon stories and the Buzzard miniseries!
This volume includes the landmark tenth-anniversary special and the riotous (and silent) One-Shot Wonder issue, plus a poignant adventure of the immortal Buzzard, wandering a desolate land after his confrontation with the Zombie Priest.
Filled with equal parts comedy and misfortune, this collection serves as both an epilogue to the Goon Year epic and the beginning of the next chapter in the story of Lonely Street's tragic protector!I've already ordered my copy of this, and I can't wait to dig in to these newly collected stories.
And with that, I really must be going. But before I do...what are you Waiting for?
I'm very pleased with my contributions. Hopefully they'll be met with your approval, but I'll settle for mild indifference.
Comics readers will recognize the nod to the wacky Frank Miller All Star Batman series, in which Batman's mind seemingly breaks (and not like it did when Grant Morrison broke his mind, either), and he does all kinds of crazy, out-of-character things.
If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know I'm a fan of Mega Man, but it may be obnoxious or difficult to follow along if you're not a fan yourself.
Sure, their humor skewed towards the frat house variety, but, more than any other comics-related publication, they were "mainstream."
And the solicitation information from Marvel isn't much happier:
Almost all of my exposure to anime has been in marathon settings--at college, I might get together once or twice a week to watch anime with friends, so we couldn't afford to watch a single episode at a time. Yet, I'm perfectly content to watch a single episode of The Simpsons, or Family Guy, or Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, so animation doesn't require marathoning in my book.
I like the show. Percentage-wise, I've seen less of DS9 than any other Star Trek series, so I'm interested to see where things go from here. All signs indicate that I should want to watch more, yet I'm usually a smidge reluctant to sit down and watch an episode. Why? After all this animated marathoning, I've determined that it's because I'm sitting down to watch an episode. Just one. I need more.
Yet, there's more to it--there are greater story arcs that need to be resolved, and episodes here and there progress the plot toward a larger satisfaction of bringing a particular chapter or situation to a close. Even then, there's the One Big Plotline that's ever-present in the background, and all the self-contained victories and failures build toward the conclusion you've waited almost ten seasons to see.
Yes, there are lesser payoffs here and there, but DS9 is not about larger-than-life heroes and death-defying intergalactic escapades. It's about real (fictional) people living in a precariously located powder keg of a space station. There are some days when you just come home and go to bed. There are some days when seemingly nothing good came out of anything you did. There are some days where even the victories feel like losses. If you want a payoff on a show like DS9, one episode isn't going to cut it. You need to see where the story takes you.
While I won't go into a full-on review here (we're just about halfway through the series at this point and I'd rather hold off until we finish the show), I did want to quickly bring up the fact that I didn't run away screaming. 
I have no idea where this came from, and honestly, I don't want to know. But it's funny. (And excessively mean, even by Joker's standards.) And sometimes, that's all that matters.
I was just wandering the convention, not really sure where to go or what to do next, and I certainly didn't expect to see Mick Foley--the Hardcore Legend of pro wrestling--staring right at me. So what do I do? I say, loudly and with a smile, "Hey! You're Mick Foley!" And, for some reason, I wave at him.
True story. 
Plenty of copies of number one popped up on eBay (for $15) on the day of release, and there's been a pretty steady stream of them on the auction site ever since. Last week, issue two shipped, and most stores picked up a few copies after the buzz for issue one had officially made it a "hot" book.
The two one-shots featured here include the 10th anniversary special issue and the amazing "silent issue," which has (you guessed it) no words.
By now, most people have heard that the bookseller giant Borders is in some financial trouble. 
Quite a while ago, on a blog very much like this one, I mentioned that it might be fun to do little spotlight post thingies on different comics, gaming, and all around cool, stores that Nathaniel and/or I have been to.
In an age of prequels, sequels, and remakes, it's refreshing to go to the movies to watch something with no ties to anything, except for the part where it's based on a comic book. Even so, I've never been exposed to The Green Hornet comics, so I'm coming at this from the perspective of a guy who's just out to see a fun movie.
For a movie like Avatar, with its BLUE ALIENS and STUNNING VISTAS, 3-D makes perfect sense--every second of the film is intended to be an eye-popping visual feast. You lose something if you don't watch THE GREATEST ADVENTURE OF ALL TIME in 3-D. The Green Hornet, though?
Or Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides?
Yet it's in 3-D. My eyes begin to suffer about halfway through any 3-D film, and I ultimately shift the 3-D glasses around on my face until they're in an awkward position where the strain isn't so bad, but the very top of the screen is obscured by the frame of the glasses. Oh, and let's not forget the practical part--Disney (or whomever) is charging me $5 or $10 more for something I don't want at all, and probably won't enhance my viewing experience enough to make up for the extra hassle and expense.
I've been meaning to write up a quick review about the documentary film, Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods, for a while now. I received a copy of the DVD for Christmas, and I watched it right away, but somehow managed to forget about writing up a review.
About that--the whole fast Image sell-out thing, I mean--it's starting to get ridiculous, and frankly, a little scary. And I don't mean to say that it's a bad thing that Image titles are selling out so quickly. That's a great thing for the company, and for smaller press books in general.
Though TRON: Legacy is, plot-wise, a sequel, the film itself is in many ways a remake of the original movie, updated for modern audiences. I'm no TRONaholic--I enjoyed the original movie well enough--so diehard fans of the first film should take this with a grain of salt: TRON: Legacy is on par with the original TRON, something that can't be said of many remakes and belated sequels.
TRON is a very dated classic, and TRON: Legacy is a worthy successor that improves on certain parts and doesn't deliver as strongly on others. It's suffient to say that I enjoyed them both about equally. Rather than give you a full-out review, which you can get from plenty of other sources who are more interested in the material, I'd like to compare a few of the elements that are present in both movies.
Seems like as good a place to start as any. I give credit to the original Recognizers for being ominous in their simplicity, and for neatly coming apart in pieces as though they were made of easily disassembled blocks. However, the new Recognizers are sleeker and, more importantly, more obviously functional. The original design always seemed like there was a lot of wasted material under the cockpit, but the new version shows that there's a use for all that excess.
In both movies, the Disk Arena serves as an introduction to the computer world's games. I like that there's a chance for character development in the original--Flynn doesn't initially realize the gravity of the situation, and the audience learns with the character what this place is all about. The sequel, however, capitalizes on the full action potential of the Light Disks, and wastes no time in doing so. I am easily won over by cool weapon battles and big explosions (or disintegrations), so there's really no contest here.
The orignal Lightcycle battle was a simple video game concept translated onto film. The sequel updates the visuals, of course, and adds an extra layer of complexity with multiple levels of the playing field, but this time the opponents play dirty. I respect the creativity of, say, whipping out your Light Disk to sneakily take out another racer, but in a way that felt like a corruption of the simple exhilaration of what a lightcycle fight should be (which was probably the point). Both versions are cool, but I think I'd rather stick with all those tricky right angles.
I'm looking at two things here: the Solar Sailer itself, and the things that happen while the characters are on it. In both movies, the vehicle provides a respite for the characters, but there's a gorgeous sky for them to look at in the sequel, while the characters find themselves being chased in the original and need to execute a track switch and a high-speed getaway. Though I'm a sucker for a beautiful sky, the danger User-powered creativity in the first Solar Sailer scene win me over.
Though there's some overlap with the characters betwen the two films, there's a fundamental difference between them: TRON has a slew of minor and supporting characters, whereas TRON: Legacy has only a handful of people and programs with names. Not only does the sequel have more time to focus on characterizing the most important players, but it also has anything that was developed in TRON as a starting point. And, frankly, I was more interested in watching the somewhat dynamic characters of the sequel than the basic computer programs and annoyed-at-their-boss-counts-as-characterization humans of the original.
The sequel has a score by Daft Punk that's part Inception, part modern video game with retro sensibilities. I'm pretty sure the original had music.
I don't know if this counts as an "element that [is] present in both movies," but the original movie got pretty slow in some parts, mostly because (the way I see it) the film was really more of a chance to show off cool ideas and technology than anything else--if a scene wasn't building up to, showcasing, or cooling down from a snazzy visual feast, then it probably wasn't too interesting.
OK, now I'm officially making up categories. The biggest selling point of the sequel is that it's flashier than the original--its charm is primarily in its dazzling special effects. The original, however, is an exploration of what a video game or the inside of a computer might look like if it were to come to life--its charm is in its creativity.
