My Haul

Yet another very slow week,

Countdown
Spiderman
and
and
and

nothing else (do you like the build up for the word nothing.. Damn i love the drama the intrigue the fucking anxiousness).

Actually i was supposed to get The Flash but Diamond forgot to send them to my LCS. Seriously If i was a company that just filled this very small (lets admit it folks our hobby is not this huge thing anymore) niche market i would really try not to fuck up as much as i do. This is why competition is good. I am sure that if there were two distributors a good number of LCS's would jump ship (i truly am speaking out my ass here but i have a keyboard in front of me so that means i know what I am talking about). The amount of times that Diamond has Fucked up my stores shipment is amazing. I was also talking to a friend that gets his comics his comics from Midtown in NYC. This is one of the biggest comic shops in the country. One week Diamond seriously shorted them on Countdown. I mean if you cannot get your major accounts right how the fuck can the little guy expect to get things when they come out.

Oh Well

Talk to you later

TJ

My Next Major purchase

OK Folks being that this is my blog and i can talk about anything i fucking want i am going to talk about the next major purchase in my life.

I am jumping off the PC bandwagon folks. I am going to be getting an iMac once my refund check arrives. (the tax credits you get for having a kid are amazing).

Here is my dilemma. I could get a bright shiny new iMac with a 320 gb HD, 256mb ATI 2600 pro Video card, 1gb RAM (more on this later), and a 20" screen for5 $1499 plus tax and i think i will get the applecare as well. Or I can get a refurb 24" with the same configuration for the same price.

My buddy Dave and I were in a mall on Sunday looking at the two screens and he convinced me that there was no reason to buy the 24". I really just looked obnoxious. But the more i think about, i am an obnoxious type of guy. i love to have bigger (fuck man I'm Irish i need to compensate for small with all my major purchases)(in case that flew past your head yes this will be an extension of my penis). I can Upgrade the Ram (still more info to come) I can upgrade the HD with an external one but you cannot really upgrade the screen size on an imac unless you want to connect a second screen (which even for me would be bawdy and excessive).

So i ask all my readers which would you go with? Are there any mac users in my reading audience (Ali i know you are) that can give some advice. Also would any of you recommend any of the dummy books for switching from PC to OS X. I truly have no clue what i am doing.

Now to the teased RAM bit. Apple only puts in 1GB sticks in the machine. I really want at least 2GB and was going to have apple do this as I am all thumbs when i comes to this shit. So i was looking at their pricing and saw that they were charging $100 bucks for a 1GB stick. OK what ever if i want it i want it right.
Well after a little research i find that i can basically get a 4GB kit from reputable online sources for Roughly the same price. What the fuck does apple think i am a fucking moron. Who the hell would pay for them to put in a 1GB stick when you can get 400% more for the same cost.

Oh well if any of you have nay advise please let me know.

Talk to you later,

TJ

All Star Batman & Robin #9

Today's review is All Star Batman and robin #9

In case you live under a fucking rock or don't read comics (why the fuck are you reading my blog) this book is written by Frank Miller and Drawn by Jim Lee

The art is amazing. Seriously i have a lot of anger towards Jim Lee. The man is never on time. He cannot do more then one book at a time. I mean holy fuck WildC.A.Ts #1 came out in November 2006 and we have yet to see #2. A sixteen month delay fucking blows and not the good type of blows that you pay $100 for in the meat packing district (i believe it is now known as Chelsea so the fucking yuppies will buy real estate and make all of NYC out of the price of any normal human being). This is the type of blows you get for putting you foot under the bathroom stall (unless you are in to that sort of thing). Where the fuck was I, oh yeah the art. The art in this book is amazingly good. Jim lee can draw a fucking book. Is it worth the wait? Probably not but i have waited and i am going to finish this book to the end.

The writing (and i am writing about this issue only) was great. it seemed a little less edgier. Miller has finally shown that Batman has some sort of heart. He didn't write the Green Lantern as a Huge Vag like he did in previous issues. This time he was just a small teen vag.

The story for this issue centered mainly on robin. Batman and robin are interviewing Green lantern and Hal says somethings that offend Marv...oh shit I mean Batman... and Robin goes crazy on his ass, putting him inches to death. It is at this point that batman seems to realize that he has gone about things a little wrong. He then stops robin and begins to teach him that this is not how we should do things.

The one thing that made me ecstatic about this book was the omission of the word God Damn (i guess two words). Every other issue has batman calling himself "the God Damn Batman" repeatedly almost to the point that you think that Miller has forgotten to write any other word. The simple Leaving out of this phrase in this issue was a breath of fresh air and made me want to read it again.

I cannot recommend this book to everyone but if you are up to this issue then why not stick around for the last 3. i mean we will probably see them in 2012.

Talk to you later,

TJ

My Haul

This could quite possible be the smallest post in my short history

My Haul this week is

Spiderman
Countdown

yep thats it folks. i couldn't spend money even if i tried.

I am not currently buying trades because of the wildpig sale going on at the end of the month and i really didn't need anything else.

Oh well i will try to spend more money later

Talk to you later

TJ

My problem with countdown

OK People. i know a lot of you have jumped off of countdown. i have convinced some to stay (kevin I'm looking at you big guy) and they are happy they did.

The writing has been fantastic. The story is really picking up and i believe editorial has listened to everyone and really changed the pace from "the spine of the DCU" to the 52 style "here are some b+ character that are very important to this story and we are just going to talk about them". OK fanboys don't get you superman undies in a bunch. i know Kyle Rayner, Darkseid, Ray Palmer, et al are not the b listers we saw in 52 but they are still not the cream of the crop characters. Hell Rayner is not even the third best GL. (i know i will take a beating for that one but my fucking forum name is gardnerisgod).

My problem lies withing the art (and sometimes editorials decision with it). I have liked not loved the art in almost every issue (except i think maybe 10(?) where i threw up in my mouth a little bit). What my problem is is that it seems to me that the artist have a grasp on most of the characters but there is always one that when i first see them i have to ask myself "who the fuck is that?".

I just finished issue 8 in the car at work this morning and jimmy olson looked fucking ridiculous. I am a fan of Magno's art for everyone else. That motherfucker can draw a mean Ray Palmer but holy fuck this guy is one of the main artist on this book and he still cannot grasp how to draw Olsen. When i saw the first panel with him in it i was thinking to myself " I am reading an old issue of the Newsboy legion and Olsen is 12". He truly looked like a pre pubescent little boy. I mean for Christ sake this guy is one of the Top photographers of a Major Newspaper. There is no way he just hit puberty last week.

And before any artist get mad at me i know ding group books like this are hard and especially if you are not the only artist. I don't expect everyone to look the same as each artist has their own style and That is something i love. Hell if each artist looked the same then we wouldn't go crazy looking for sketches and original pieces. But for fucks sake can you at least make the kid the right age.

Well that is my rant for now. Back later with my haul. (I've checked what i am getting already and that post should be very small.

TJ

RASL #1

Today's Review (hopefully first of a couple but lets not get ahead of ourselves) is RASL#1:

This book is written and drawn by Jeff Smith.

First the Art. Man do I love Jeff Smith's art. It has a simple style that is amazing. One of the things that i noticed in Bone and also somewhat in this is that his character images are a little simplistic (I'm sure that they are not easy to draw but they seem that way) but the contrast of these simple lines with the backgrounds that he draws is amazing. I have not read Shazam and the Monster Society of Evil (i heard there is some allegorical political stuff in there that really would not mesh with my ideals) but i am still thinking of picking it up just to look at his art.

The Writing is pretty good for a first issue. Not a lot of dialogue and it is mostly told in narration boxes. For some reason i am always drawn to books like this. It gives you a little info on the main character and it is enough to draw you in. The only complaint i have (and man is it minute) is i think a little more could have been offered to the reader. I was left wondering a little too much when i finished this story. for a first issue of a completely new story you really need to through the readers a bone on what kind of story you are going to tell.

The story is centered around an art thief named RASL i think ( i don't believe they ever actually come out and tell you that). He is talking about how all this thievery used to be hard before he tapped into the drift. The drift is kind of explained as a way to jump through inter dimensional worlds. (again a little more info would have been nice). We next see him on what looks like a normal world and entering a bar where he needs to combat how tired he is after the "Jump". While in the Bar he see something strange in the Juke Box that makes him realise he is not on the right dimension. After this a lizard creature comes in and begins to shoot at him. He runs and goes to a roof top where it is kind of explained that Drifting takes a lot out of you and there is no way you can do it twice in a day.

This book Just misses being perfect. I am looking forward to the next one and hopefully things will be explained.

Talk to you all later

TJ

My Haul

Hi Everyone. Well after my huge apology and saying that i will be more active on the blog i go away for another three weeks. Truth be told i was on vacation for three weeks to spend time with my daughter. I found out the great thing about babies. they sleep a shitload and that means daddy can play a ton of Video games. I am now addicted to Call of Duty and Halo. Online play is quite amazing and addicting. More on this sleeping thing later first to the comics I bought this week.

I didn't get to go out the the shop last week so this is two weeks worth of shit.

Action Comics 862
All Star Batman 9
Batman 674
Detective Comics 842 (anyone think i will be sick of batman after this week is up)
Countdown 9 &8 (i was so tired when i was reading these that i almost read them out of order Fuck you DC with your backwards numbering)
Green lantern 28
Amazing Spiderman 552
The Boys 16

Well so my wife Was home with Katie for 12 weeks. My child likes to scream a lot and i was very stressed out about watching her. We were following this book called the happiest baby on the block that insisted that we needed to do these things called the 5 S's (Side, Swaddle, Sssh, Shake, Sucker punch oooops i mean Suck). The thing is Katie seemed to hate this but would calm down eventually and fall asleep. We thought it was because these 5 S's were working. So my wife had to put up with this like i said for twelve weeks. Oh have I mentioned that when My child is unhappy there is no crying just all out screaming like we were ripping her arm out by the socket. My wife was stressed and actually happy to get back to work.

No Comes my first day with her. I'm taking acre of her all morning and holding her and feeding her like any good papa would do well fast forward to noon and she is screaming bloody murder at me. I am hungry and decide I'm not putting up with this shit any longer I'm going to put her in the bed screaming and Have a Cigarette and make myself a Tuna Sandwich.

About half way through the Tuna Sandwich i sense something that i haven't sensed all morning. Quiet! Turns out she put herself to sleep. I am happy about this (after checking on her of course to make sure she is OK). She then proceeds to sleep for three hours. i tell my wife and she doesn't believe me. So that night instead of destroying our nerves we put Katie Down without any S's (well that is a lie we still swaddle her.... the moron doesn't realise her arms are at her sides and sometimes she will punch herself in her sleep and wake herself up. I mean c'mon Katie you act like such a baby oh wait!!!) So she resist for a little bit but me and my wife go into the living room and low and behold 5 minutes later the crying stops she is asleep and she actually sleeps for 10 hours through the night. It has been like this ever since.

So I am a happy father and Life was fantastic during those three weeks.

Talk to you all later in the day probably

TJ