Comics: The Animated Series

If you asked a group of average comic book fans what it was that initially got them into superheroes, chances are some of them will point to a cartoon from their childhood. I know plenty of folks who cite the X-men and Batman animated series as their introduction to the world of comics, and I myself have mentioned before on this blog that I probably would have never delved deep into DC’s catalog if it wasn’t for the Justice League animated series which premiered around when I was starting college. Animation obviously lends itself quite well to adapting the illustrative story telling of comic books, but that doesn’t mean that every show produced is an exact representation of the work it is using as source material. Stories and character history typically have to be condensed for a standard TV format, and alterations have to be made to appease much stricter content regulation. Also, because these shows don’t necessarily have to bow to decades of published history and can be written as self contained stories not connected with their paper-backed counter-parts, new ideas can flourish and stories that might not have been told otherwise can be shared with a wide audience. In fact, it is not uncommon for the more successful elements of these shows to find their way into the books that inspired them, the best example of this being the character of Harley Quinn who was created for the Batman animated series and who now has a solid hold as a fan-favorite villain/anti-hero(?) in the DC universe.

Of course, in less than capable hands, the potential that these cartoons have can quickly turn and become tedious or offensive. There are always going to be die-hard fans of the the books who will criticize changes to source material or choices that don’t fall in line with how they would perceive their favorite characters in an animated setting (such as voice acting decisions, character design, etc.) There is also the problem of dumbing down the concepts TOO much to appeal to a vaster/younger audience. One of my biggest pet peeves is the seeming lack of good production, such as cheap looking, re-used, or just poor animation and the heavy reliance on stock graphics and amateur-looking computer effects. That last one is a bit more subjective, but I’m sure some of you can think of a show or two where you personally had issue with some of the production as well (the old Spider-man animated series from the 90′s used to re-use animation ALL THE TIME and it bugged the hell out of me, even when i was a kid!)

So how are comic-themed cartoons doing nowadays? Are they still going strong and bringing new comic fans into the fold? Or are they just embarrassing parodies of the stories and characters we love? Let me give you my thoughts on the super-hero cartoons currently on air, and see if you agree:

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Posted in Cartoons, Comics, DC, Marvel, Review, TV | 5 Comments

The New 52 – The Good, The Meh, and The Ugly

Well, we are over 6 months into DC’s New 52, and the first wave of cancellations and new releases are right around the corner. I figured it was about time to hunker down and tell you which of these titles I found most successful. I apologize for never getting around to doing full, in-depth reviews for every single series, but hopefully this little (read as: SIZEABLE) article will make up for it a bit. In general, I don’t know if the New 52 was a very worthwhile event, and there are plenty of story and character changes I find baffling or just plain loathe. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some bright spots in what could otherwise be considered one massively underwhelming sales gimmick. Here I will give you some brief opinions on each of the 52 ongoing series that were a part of this reboot, and whether I consider them to be good, mediocre, or TERRIBO. If you aren’t familiar at all with DC’s New 52, I suggest you read my brief explanation here along with my first impressions of the event from back in October. Let’s start off with the best and work our way to the worst.

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Posted in Best, Comics, DC, List, New 52, Review, Worst | 2 Comments

TMBG and JoCo at Tipitina’s!

Last weekend I had to pleasure of taking in a most excellent concert. These past few months two of my favorite musical acts, They Might Be Giants and Jonathan Coulton, have been touring to promote each of their new albums. In July TMBG released Join Us, their 15th studio album and first non-kids album in almost 5 years. I was a bit disappointed in their last studio effort, The Else, and was hoping this would be the endeavor where they got back on track. Luckily it seems that they have, and although far from perfect, this album was the most enjoyable full rock release I’ve heard from them since Mink Car. Jonathan Coulton had set up much different expectations with his first professionally produced album, Artificial Heart, which was released in September. Coulton had made a name for himself through a vast library of quirky, geek-friendly songs, most of which were self produced during a experiment where he wrote, composed, and recorded one song a week for an entire year. These songs were available primarily by download from his website, and this along with other factors (such as producing music for the Portal video game franchise and writing songs about IT and program code) made him extremely popular among the internet-savvy. So needless to say, expectations were high when Coulton announced on his website that he was teaming up with John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants to produce his first professional studio album. Artificial Heart is a solid album, and retains the polished musicianship and quirkiness that define Coulton. However, it seems to be lacking a bit in the stand-out songs that made him a household name among geeky music lovers. That isn’t to say this is an entire album of boring songs, but it just seems to be missing something with the punch of previous fan-favorite tunes.

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The Amazing Spider-Man Trailer!

Now here is a movie I have some very serious reservations about. Sam Raimi wasn’t doing horribly with Spider-man up until the fiasco that was the franchise’s third installment. But was it so bad that it warranted a wiping clean of everything that came before it? Say what you want about the original movies (and you can say a lot, both good and bad), but this doesn’t seem necessary at all. Of course, the main reason they are doing this is to generate a big event hype-machine and then make a billion dollars regardless of quality. Of course I’m judging this movie before seeing it, so I could be wrong there. I just really fear that these comic companies, which keep up the flawed idea that events and hypse will sell books better than actual quality goods, will start applying that practice to their multimedia endeavors and, eventually, completely water down the super-hero genre to a point where it will never be in demand again. And that would SUUUUCK. Of COURSE I want more comic book movies! I just want something good and not redundant. Amazing Spider-man doesn’t look like much of either… Lets get to the trailer.

There is a lot I could say about this trailer, and the plot synopsis that accompanied it earlier this week, but I’ll keep it short. First off I hate that the guys in charge of Marvel’s movie/TV division have a raging boner for the Ultimate universe. I hate the Ultimate universe. Anytime i see something borrowed from it I want to punch the world. HOWEVER, the one title i actually really enjoyed from this alternate world of stories was, in fact, Brian Michael Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-man. So being a fan of that series, I can see the elements of those stories bleeding into this trailer and into the plot points we know of so far. Unfortunatly, I think it is a serious mistake to deviate from the story everyone already knows about Spider-man and waste ANOTHER movie with a ANOTHER origin story. This has got to be tedious (and possibly confusing) for casual non-geek fans. As for the true comic fans, I can’t imagine how what we know about this plot can come across as anything other than annoying and frustratingly pointless. Plot points such as Peter’s search for his missing parents (as opposed to them having died when he was little), his father having worked with Curt Connors/The Lizard at Oscorp (Whaaaa?), and Uncle Ben perhaps NOT DYING BEFORE PETER BECOMES SPIDER-MAN are only a few of the issues I am referring to.

As far as positives go I will say I like some of the casting in this new film better than the previous. Andrew Garfield just comes across a lot more likeable and less punch-in-the-face worthy than Tobey Maguire. Emma Stone is GOREGOUS and I very much appreciate that they went with Gwen Stacy as the love interest in this film. Dennis Leary is a pretty interesting choice as Captain Stacy as well. I LOATHE the casting of Martin Sheen and Sally Field as Uncle Ben and Aunt May. They don’t look right for the part at all, and that’s mainly because of the perceived age difference between the two. Also Sally Field is just way too quirky of an actress for the epitome of motherly love that is Aunt May. Rhys Ifans the jury is still out on. I really hope he does a good job cause Curt Connors is one of my favorite characters from the comics. Which leads me to my last point…

They continue to hide the appearance of the Lizard in these trailers, and although the CGI looks great there is a serious concern with how the Lizard will look in the final film. Early renderings from test screenings and pictures of promotional materials have already leaked out and the design leaves MUCH to be desired. Gone is the purely reptilian beast and in its place we find… a Goomba from the Super Mario Brothers movie? But seriously folks, this design is far more reminiscent of the Killer Croc character from Batman: The Animated Series than any way I’ve ever seen the Lizard presented. Of course, I could be wrong and it could play very well in full motion on the screen. I’ll have to see.

Sorry about the rant! thanks for reading!

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2012 New Orleans Comic Con!

I know I’m running behind on content folks. I’m gonna stop making promises about getting thinks up regularly since I seem to utterly fail at it! Here is a write-up about my visit to the Wizard World New Orleans Comic Convention last weekend!

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Posted in Comics, Conventions, Cosplay, Toys | 3 Comments

The Avengers Movie Super Bowl Trailer!

How bout them Giants? In case you missed out on seeing this exceptional new trailer for The Avengers movie which aired yesterday during the Super Bowl, I shall embed it here for your viewing pleasure!

I soooo can’t wait! I’m very glad to see the Hulk (seemingly) has a design similar to what we saw in The Incredible Hulk film with Edward Norton. Now to see if Mark Ruffalo can bring out a solid performance as the new Bruce Banner. Also a note: I hate that Black Widow is the token female character in this movie. She better have some good character moments and not just be eye-candy in this film. Also makes me wonder if we will see Hank Pym or Janet Van Dyne make cameo appearances somewhere in this film. I really hope so!

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Best/Worst Movies of 2011 (That I Actually Saw)

Happy 2012 everyone! I hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year’s filled with revelry and debauchery and all that good stuff! To kick things off this year I decided to do what most entertainment sites/blogs do around this time and compile a retrospective of the previous year! For this list I decided to rank the best (and worst) movies that I took in during 2011. Now before you get all judgmental on me I need to clarify two things. Firstly, these are MY opinions and I understand that some of my selections aren’t going to match up with those of everyone who reads this space. Don’t worry, that doesn’t make you a failure-face (necessarily…), it just means we have different tastes and priorities in what we want from our media. I may poke fun at (Read as: flat-out insult) people who don’t share my opinions, but it’s all in good fun and nothing personal!

The other important thing I need to mention is that, again, these are the best and worst movies released in 2011 that I actually SAW. Sure, I’d love to load up my “Worst of” list with Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks 3, Glee the 3D Concert Movie, etc. but I didn’t actually see those movies (and doubt I will anytime soon). So please keep that in mind when we get to that part, as obviously the films I list are likely nowhere near as bad as all of that garbage. Let’s get started!

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Posted in Best, List, Movies, Review, Worst | 1 Comment

Epic Movie Trailer Week!

So this week it seems like ALL the big blockbusters of the coming year decided to drop their first full-length trailers for the world to consume. Aside from The Avengers (the trailer for which I’ve already shared on this site), these are pretty much the most hyped-up and highly anticipated films for a lot of people, myself included. Lets take a gander, shall we?

Being the giant comic nerd I am, of COURSE I am a huge fan of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, with Dark Knight being just a wonderful surprise of pop culture-shifting awesomeness. We all knew that Nolan would eventually return to finish out a trilogy, since that seems to be LAW with any successful franchise-able film nowadays, and everyone pondered what the story would be and which Bat-villians would be used. Color me surprised when Tom Hardy was announced as Bane. Bane is not only a VERY unknown character outside of comic fans (aside from his HORRIBLE appearance in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever… If you even count that) but one with a design and power set/origin that didn’t seem like it would translate well into a film series that took itself as seriously as Nolan’s films do. I’m not surprised to see the character only vaguely mirrors his comic book counterpart, at least in terms of the visual. We’ll have to wait and see if the strange mask contraption Bane is wearing in these trailers is at all tied to the strength enhancing “venom” that he used in the books. Though I’m far more optimistic about his inclusion after seeing him in this trailer, I am concerned about his speaking voice, as early screening reports indicate that Bane is nearly impossible to understand, and this trailer doesn’t do much to down-play those reports.

The other big new star for this film is Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle (and possibly her alter-ego Catwoman), who gives a good read in this trailer. I would say that I’m a fan of Hathaway from her previous work, but she wouldn’t have been my first or even my TENTH choice for Selina. This trailer helps her case a bunch, but I still wonder if she can pull off the sultry, dangerous aspects of the character made famous through the books.

Finally, most people seem to like to point out the exploding/collapsing football field scene in the trailer as “OMG EPICXX LOL”, but i think it looks really fake… Just my opinion!

Now, I’ll take any look I can get at footage from this movie, the first of two prequels to the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films. However, this trailer seems a bit weak to me… as a TRAILER anyway. It definitely comes across as “we are still filming and don’t have enough cut together to make a real solid trailer yet, but here is some awesome finished footage” and I’m okay with that, but again it only gets me revved up for the film because I was ALREADY revved up for this film. I’m being nitpicky, I know. Either way, I can not WAIT for this movie and its follow-up. I was a HUGE fan of Jackson’s films (despite a few issues with the translation from the books, but they are still great movies) and am sure that I will be of these as well.

The dwarves look very strange in this movie. I love the designs of the characters, but few of them look at all like the two or three dwarves we saw in the previous movies. I would really like to see them next to other human-sized individuals to see how stocky and short they are supposed to come across as. Thorin especially I feel should look MUCH more “dwarfy” as the leader of his group of people. The stockiness seems to be the biggest issue I have with the character designs. I have no problems with the youth or the hair (or lack of hair, as i guess would be the issue for most), but dwarves need to be a bit more chunky and sturdy looking!

Guess I’ll have to wait for the next trailer to see the designs for the spiders…. FFFUUUU I hate spiders…

I don’t know much about this movie except that for a long time it was being hyped up as a prequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien movie. Scott has denied this since then, but there is no doubt this film is set in the same universe as the Alien films. This movie looks MASSIVE. Lots of practical sets and awesome H.R. Gieger-y designs everywhere. This movie definitely has an epic feel. Lets hope, like with so much modern day science fiction, that this movie doesnt let us down with the same tired cliche stuff and instead delivers something new and awesome. I would LOVE for this film to kick off a new big budget sci-fi renaissance, like Avatar was supposed to (before everyone realized it was the same tired story and characters used in ALL STORIES). Not much else to say about it other than I eagerly await the opportunity to see such a grand sci-fi picture in the theaters!

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A New DCU 52 Review! – Hawk and Dove

The only thing I ever really knew about Hawk and Dove for the longest time was that one was a fighter and one was a pacifist, though I never really knew why. Also when I first heard of these heroes they were both men, and then when I finally started following DC titles they were both women, so that was a bit confusing. However, one of the benefits of the Blackest Night event was that it shined a light on these characters and it made me want to learn more about them. Dove in particular became an important part of the story continuing into Brightest Day, and I was a big fan of the interesting relationship that was formed between her and fellow hero Deadman. Needless to say I was hoping they didn’t erase all of this great character building in the re-launch and was looking forward to reading about them, especially once I learned that Deadman WOULD in fact be a supporting character in the series. Unfortunately in order to keep up with these characters I was going to be forced to endure the artistic stylings of the infamous Rob Liefeld. BLEGH.

Boy was THIS book disappointing. The first issue is fairly light on dialogue for most of the issue and focuses on some action as Hawk and Dove try to stop a plane full of genetic zombies from crashing into the Washington memorial. YOU HEARD ME. We also get a brief origin story for our Hawk, Hank Hall, and the original Dove, his brother Don. The origin is kind of LAME and I would have thought with a re-launch they might have come up with a less “silver-agey” feeling origin, where Don essentially just gets really made and wishes for superpowers… and gets them… weeee! We don’t learn much of anything about Dove other than she IS still dating Deadman, so that aspect from before the reboot is still intact. What we DON’T know is what else is carried over. Hawk seems to indicate at least ONE of the Crisis events have occurred by mentioning the circumstances of his brother’s death, but at the same time doesn’t seem to indicate HE ever had a problem with the whole dying thing, as he was resurrected recently in Blackest Night, the same story the whole Dove/Deadman relationship was established! Lots of head-hurty continuity here, folks. The second issue doesn’t give us much more to enjoy as it is, once again, primarily zombie-punching. We do however get introduced to a new mystery about the purpose and nature of “avatars” as apparently Hawk and Dove aren’t the only two embodiments of abstract concepts floating around, and neither are they the only ones named after birds! We also get introduced to Condor and Swan, two stupid looking reoccurring villains who look like Hawk and Dove with their costumes dyed a different color. Super lazy character design party! We don’t really know what they are up to other than they are crazy and apparently EAT other avatars for power. All in all this book is REALLY weak in all departments, from story and characters to lack of proper utilization of the reboot. However, I have yet to mention the WORST thing about this book…

THE ART. Dear GOD the art. It is horrible. I mean, I know it is kind of played out to insult Rob Liefeld on his art, but it is TERRIBLE here. The action is draw is such a disinteresting way it is just baffling. Not only that but ALL of the characters look the same. When Hawk is out of costume he looks exactly like every other normal guy in the book, just with different hair. Same goes for Dove and all of the women. And speaking of hair, everyone has that pseudo-90s looking wild-hair that Liefeld just can’t help but draw on everyone. Everyone looks mad all the time with scowls and angry squinty eyes when they are just having normal conversation. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hawk, Osprey, and Condor all look EXACTLY the same because Rob was just lazy and didn’t want to design any interesting new costumes for dumb throw-away characters. The worst is when Hank and his father are on the same page. These two guys, despite being DECADES apart in age, look EXACTLY THE SAME. Why? Can you not draw old people, Rob? You can’t just give someone white hair and expect readers to believe that guy is like 20-30 years older than another character. Awful. Just awful.

Needless to say, I am NOT recommending this book and I will not be following it any further. I beg you to do the same. I really hope this is the low point of my New 52 experience… but I somehow doubt it.

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Canceling Full-Length New 52 Reviews! DOH!

Bad news folks! I have just fallen too far behind in my New 52 Reviews and decided to scrap the idea. They were coming off fairly bland in my opinion anyway, and i HATED being forced to do full-length synopses for some of the less interesting/bad titles. To make up for it starting next week I’ll be doing very short reviews for the remainder of the comic titles I haven’t yet covered. These will most likely range from about 2-4 paragraphs and just serve and a bit of info on the title as well as my own opinion of it. That way I can still get my thoughts out there and help you guys figure out what books you might wanna pick up.

I have one or two ideas for filling this site with some better content, but for now bear with me as i try to get into the swing of things. Once I knock out these mini-reviews on the remainder of the New 52 titles I’ll be able to focus on putting up other stuff regularly and figure out what would make a good weekly column. My hope is to delve into some video reviewing in the future, but I’ve got to see if I have the resources available to me and if I work well on camera. Hopefully good things to come, but in the meantime, Sorry!

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