Bah! Tuesday is the New Doomsday!

Just because...

For all you Ronin fans out there

Show the world your love

I just bought this one because its cool, but in that ironic "it totally sucks" kind of way! You know, like being an Aquaman fan? Check out the alteration that I did to it!

Ha! Take that Bendis!

(Ok, so I didn't alter it, I did that with photoshop. Oh, and I didn't buy it either. I'm an awful liar with red hair and freckles. Proceed to throw stones at me now.)

Black History Month, New Warriors Style

That'll teach you honky mutants to mess with Sphinx on Earth Forever Yesterday!
Don't ask me what Nova's doing there as the answer doesn't make much sense, but let's just thank Fabian Nicenza for having the insight to put him on the Avengers instead of using Echo or Wolverine.

Completely unrelated to Black History Month but totally related to Earth Forever Yesterday who has read Avengers Forever? I saw this picture at the aforementioned link and now I'm interested in checking it out. Care to help me out? I'm sure Kelvin knows.

New Warriors Por Vida!

With the news regarding the "Heroes For The 90s-!" as shown to us in the preview pages for Civil War at Buzzscope along with the NY Times article, its safe to say that things are not looking good for the New Warriors. Granted, there wasn't anything going on for them, outside of their recent mini-series, there was always hope that this motley cast of super heroes would have their day in the sun again. Now that they're dead, well.....maybe its time we take a look back at the original 25 issues that made them....err..."Heroes For The 90s-!"

Yep. Consider yourself warned.

So, I'm more than halfway through V For Vendetta, and hot damn, this book is good. I read it for the first time last year and like all things complex and well thought out, a good portion of it flew right by me. I blame it on the sheer volume of books that I was ingesting at the time, making it difficult to fully appreciate V For Vendetta. That and my lack of a proper college education. However, the second time around, its even better. I would love to write a huge length Ian Brillesque post about the similiarities between V For Vendetta and Miracleman(both prominent works of Moores that he put out in the 80s that were also both stopped and restarted at some point in their publishing schedule)specifically focusing on comparing and deconstructing the totalitarian environments that Moore creates for each story as well as the transformation that both main characters undergo from human to superhuman, BUT......that shit is way too smarts for the like of this blog, so we'll just leave it at.

Is there any mp3s for the "Vicious Cabaret" that V sings at the beginning of Part 2 online anywhere that anyone knows of? I'm sure it will show up in the movie, but I'm curious to see if Alan Moore ever got crazy and recorded something. I'm almost half tempted to plop the music in front of my mother and have her play on it on her church organ, but I'm afraid she might find it offensive.

In other Alan Moore related news, I never made it to the shop, so I never picked up Future Shocks. Kelvin says its good so I'll have to keep an eye out for it next week, along with Tales Designed to Thrizzle # 2.

In some non-Alan Moore related news, I'm juggling the idea of doing a series of posts about the greater glories of the first 25 issues of New Warriors just because. This would be complimented by a "What Bendis Could Have Done Better" series of posts about the New Avengers, inspired by Randy's little rant the other day. What started as a comment on his posting turned into a full blown rant of my own that I'm almost afraid to explore for fear of it putting me dangerously close into fan fiction territory. And if I go there, do I get so bold as to make it a slash piece, considering that if there ever was a time and place for a romantic relationship between a billionaire super hero industrialist and a mutant Canadian killing machine, that time is now and the place is the pages of New Avengers?

Nah, someone probably beat me to that punch already.

Once again...

I do a post based off something that someone else said that is much, much better well put than I could ever hope to do. See? I can't even formulate a proper fucking sentence. But anyways.....take it away, Jake of Ye Olde Comick Booke Blogge on why Nextwave sucks because..

Warren Ellis isn't very good at absurdist humor:

This is what passes for humor when you are Warren Ellis or when you are eleven years old. Absurdist humor is much more difficult than it looks, and sadly, as it looks extremely easy, it's quite inviting to people who think they are funnier than they actually are the world over.

On Warren Ellis making fun of New Jersey:

Oh, no, you di-in't! New Jersey is so burned right now! Making fun of New Jersey is so not cliche! I also am proud of myself for recognizing that Dirk Anger is a parody of Nick Fury. Hang on... Fury... Anger... Those are synonyms! Damn, that's sweet!

Making jokes about New Jersey is on par with jokes about airline food being bad or how "black folks and white folks be different, y'all."

On why it takes more than just having a giant lizard wearing purple pants showing up to be funny:

Why is Fin Fang Foom wearing purple underwear? So Ellis can refer to it repeatedly because it's SOOOOO fucking clever. Why was "The Captain" originally known as "Captain "? Because it's SOOOOO ing clever. Why are the Human Resources henchmen made of "slabs of genetically modified kelp"? Because as I learned when I was at the beach in 1986, "kelp" is a funny word.

On naysayers:

I understand it's parody. But parody can be Austin Powers, Top Secret, or Airplane, but it can also be Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.

Read it in its entirety.

And let me say, thank you Jake. You made my day.

Just because..

While looking for that New Warriors image from my previous post, I found this and decided that all three of you need to see it.


Its Terrax fighting Disco Diva Dazzler!

Thank you, Great Curve

Recently, I've made a resolution to myself regarding my buying habits of comics. In an attempt to save up some money to buy me a guitar amp, I have decided on going to comic shop only once a month. True, its pure insanity on my behalf which has cause some discomfort for both my comic shop and my comic book buying comrade in arms Ryan, but I just had to do it. First I tried to slim down the monthlies in hopes of saving some cash, but I noticed my trade-or-two week spending habit was still killing my wallet. Add this to the fact that comics in general were pretty much not doing a damn thing to get me excited, with the exception of anything with Alan Moore's name on it, it became a decision that I was very glad I made. As interested waned in comics, so did my interest in what was coming out, being talked about, hyped, and hated on. Thankfully, I managed to keep at least one toe in the shallow end, or else I'd probably miss this:

Rebellion

Alan Moore: The Complete Future Shock TP

Hisham: A collection of Alan Moore’s early stories for 2000AD. Since his current comic book output has slowed down, I need to get my Moore fix wherever I can find it.

Muchos Gracias to people like the TheGreatCurve.net for having the need to express their opinions on what's coming out on the weekly basis for me to pick up on the things that I would have probably missed. Along with the new Astonishing, I just might have a reason to go to Earth-2 Comics a week early.

There's also talk on TheGreatCurve.net of a preview of Civil War that involves the New Warriors fighting Nitro over at PopCultureShock.com, which I believe is now BuzzScope.com, correct? Either way, I can't access those sites from the cubicle I'm currently behind, so I can't take a gander. Let's hope that this Civil War mess leads to a newly launched Nicenza/Bagley New Warriors comic book sometime in the next 12-18 months so we can finally forgive Marvel for that whole House Of M messy mess. That should be enough time for Bagley to break the Kirby/Lee record on FF and move on to a book that allows him to show his super hero drawing abilities once again, yes?

Related Link: Night Thrasher = Badical

Mad is finally catching up with Science

Thanks to BoingBoing.net, we finally get a glimpse into the labratory of the poor misunderstood chemistry geek gone ape shit crazy and ask the question: Can we make bio-weapons that are powerful enough to threaten a city's water supply unless the mayor ponies up a million dollars by sun down? According to Paul Boutin, yes you can. Not only does he show, that yes, instead of stealing Centox(sp?) like they did on 24, you can just create Anthrax, dye it mustard yellow and give it some kind of idiotic name like Germ-X. Thanks to Paul Boutin who not only lets us know what kind of equipment you'll probably need and where to get it, he tells us how to get it without getting into too much trouble.

Come on! How easy it to make a bio-weapon? That must be like doing submicroscopic surgery...

It sounds like submicroscopic surgery, but all you do is squirt chemicals into a culture dish and let it all soak overnight.

Fuck.

Yes, but does it come with a domino mask?

If you're boring, lame, and completely dull, you're probably watching the Winter Olympics. Try to change the channel and watch as your roommate, who has absolutely no interest in the whole mess whatsoever, gets upset at you for cutting his 5 second attention span down by 2 seconds. Sorry, but the Winter Olympics is crap that you should only watch when The Girlfriend makes you because it holds absolutely nothing of interest to someone with such great taste as me.

Imagine my surprise when I came across this at Engadget.com:

Some American and Canadian skiers competing in the Olympics have a secret weapon: a flexible form of "body armor" that's molded to the shape of their bodies and hardens on impact. The material, known as d3o, and developed by scientists working with skiwear maker Spyder, contains a proprietary polymer that has "strain rate flexibility." While normally flexible, sudden impact hardens the molecules of the material, making it as protective as the traditional arm and leg guards worn in slalom runs.

That's body armor, my friends. The exact kind of body armor that can deflect gaudy themed weapons like blade umbrellas and giant scissors. The best part that is already comes in bold, bright primary colors that will go perfect with your crappy super hero name. Considering the Colorado based company is called Spyder, it is only safe to assume that the CEO who runs the company is really an arachnid themed hero that galvants around the dark alleys of Colorado, making sure they streets are safe for skier and non-skier alike. Combine this with what we learned yesterday about NASA controlled Spider-Slayers, and it all starts to make perfect sense. Ten dollars says that once NASA tries to take over the world, we'll be looking to the Winter Olympics for our champions and saviours. My money is on the Australian Gold Medalist Dale Begg-Smith, which theAge.au has described as "Lamborghini-driving Canadian-turned-Australian moguls skier who is reluctant to talk about his dealings which remain shrouded in secrecy", will be the first one on the scene with Rocket Skis.

Yes, I swear to God that I learned all of this by reading tech blogs and NOT watching the Winter Olympics.

Are you scared yet?

Because you should be! That is a good damn Spider-Slayer if I ever saw one.

Courtesy of Engadget.com:

We've heard tell of NASA's Spidernaut, a large robot designed to service spacecraft, but after finally seeing it in action we're not so sure humans are fully prepared to battle against robots in the coming rebellion -- this thing is pretty hardcore. Supposedly its current incarnation is only 1/4 of the final size, but the target is a 600 pound robot that can distribute weight evenly over its eight legs to avoid damaging the skin of the spacecraft or for scurrying across solar panels. NASA is even looking into a "web" deployment system for the bot, in which case we're hiding the women and children and locking the doors.

I second that notion, Engadget.com. That thing is one pissed off AI temper tantrum away from rising up and destroying its maker. Considering that the picture above is only 1/4 of the final size that NASA is shooting for, I suggest you all click on over to Bloomsbury.com and pick up a copy of Daniel H. Wilson's How To Survive A Robot Uprising like, um.....yesterday. We don't even need an evil Artificial Intelligence to set that thing off. If what they've been saying about Nasa's troubled future comes true, all it will take is one disgruntled ex-NASA employee to push a couple buttons to unleash a legion of real life Spider-Slayers while he launches himself into the safety of the last great frontier with only a retired simian cosmonaut at his side to keep him company. With no Spider-man around to save us, we are certainly fucked every which way but nice.

And don't expect a bolt of lightning to come down, granting these things an inquistive and friendly personality like Hollywood's beloved Johnny 5. That is not a butterfly or a maple leaf. Those are your bloody innards splayed about.

UPDATE: I'm currently contemplating the future of this meager little blog. The options? Keep on keeping on like I have been doing, posting here and there when the occassional stupid thought strikes me OR capitalizing on my new fond love of reading various different technology and gadget sites by taking those thoughts that pop into my head about what the practical application of some new wonderous device would have in the realm of vigilante justice. Seeing how I've cut my visits to the comic shop down drastically for a number of reasons that I don't really care to bore you with, coming up with "snarky" commentary on comics has been in slow reserve lately. And considering the eventual end to the current slow pace of work that has blossomed this new found interest in technology blogs, I can't say how much I'll be able to keep up on that end of things, well.....we might have a little bit from Column A and Column B. But what about Column X? That weird random thought about whatever the fuck comes to mind? Well, we might have more of that, too. Who knows.

While I contemplate the fate of Of Course, Yeah!, here's a blog about a guy who plays video games with Grandma: Old Grandma Hardcore It is so splendidly wonderful that I can't even begin to describe how much sadder the world will be when the day comes that God comes down and takes Timothy St. Hilaire's Grandma back up to Heaven. I definitely recommend reading about her experiences of playing Prince Of Persia 2, linked on the sidebar. Es muy bueno.