May 13, 2008
LOLcat of the week - 5/13
No other updates today, finishing final research paper and cleaning my dorm in prep for graduation.
May 12, 2008
Happy Mday, and an Announcement
I hope everyone had a good Mday (I’m proud, I came up with that by myself). I myself went out to dinner with my mother at a nice snazzy restaurant. Things are getting busy for myself right now, with five (5) days left until graduation, this year has been pretty crazy. Not that I’ll be talking about that now, I may elaborate on it in Life of a Welshman, my fairly new personal blog to discuss all that, but suffice to say I’m excited. In addition to a diploma, I will also have upwards of 200 new comics to read. Why 200? Well, possibly even more than that, you see, I’ve been busy recently. So over the past 4-7 weeks (probably since midmarch) I have not found time in my schedule to read comics, yet I have continually gone out and purchased them every few weeks, thanks to the box I have at my local comic shop. Assuming 5-7 comics a week, that’s already around 50 comics. I picked up another huge haul from Free Comic Book Day on May 3rd. Then on May 4th, a town near where I live hosted its semi-annual rummage sale, where I found comics going for 50 cents a pop. Needless to say I think I spent around 30-40 dollars there, and they were all good deals, mostly from the late 70’s to the mid 90’s. Plus the occasional ebay shipment over the past few weeks - Ebay is a HUGE weakness of mine.
It was with this realization that I decided that next week, or the week after depending on the feedback I get (either through comments or email to yourcomicreliefblog@gmail.com) will be Ebay week. In which I will discuss the joys and possible pitfalls of Ebay, as well as elaborate for all of you my massive comic acquisitions, complete with full bodied reviews, and rapid fire review sections. It is now that I come to ask something of you. For this week long extravaganza, I would like to have one or two guest articles, comics, or reviews. So, if you are interested, send me a message or an email, again my contact email is yourcomicreliefblog@gmail.com, or even just leave a comment. Let me know if what you would like to do, and what topic you are planning on addressing.
One last thing, I have recently started using twitter. I’d like to start using this as a feedback and discussion tool with my readers, as well as a notification system for when I post a new article. So, go ahead and follow me, and I’ll do my best to follow each one of you.
May 11, 2008
Weekend Webcomic Woes
So, the weekend used to be a time where I would become excited for the new Ctrl-Alt-Del from Tim Buckley, but now that he has recently canceled his weekend posts, my weekends are becoming much more webcomic-less. Let me back up a bit, I used to save A Simple Apology and Palindramas for the weekend, and PvPonline has also just moved to a non-weekend schedule, although admittedly, my interest in PvPonline is passing at best. A Simple Apology, a webcomic by college student Mark Gleim, recently announced no new comics till June 3rd. This I can relate to, being a college student myself (however not for much longer, 6 days now and still doing unbelievable amount of work, which I am procrastinating right now), and I know how busy the end of semester can be. Palindramas, which usually updates Wednesdays, is my last bastion of hope for the weekends. Palindramas is a comic by Dan Mazur about palindromes, something I very much enjoy myself. I don’t know what it is about palindromes, but they really catch me, like when the clock reads 10:01, I get a little excited. Thank you Dan Mazur for keeping things animated for me on the weekends, because it seems nobody else will. Couple this with VGcats‘ poor track record this year for updates, and wow. Although, I have to be honest here, who wants to work on weekends, or do more work during the week in order to be able to publish another comic on the weekends, and I know it takes a good amount of time to get those made up. Does anyone know of any good webcomics out there that I might not be reading?
May 10, 2008
I’m not dead yet!
So, last I was here, I mentioned I was sick. Well “I got better” (ok, last Monty Python reference). I haven’t been around as the end of semester has been hell. I’ve got a pile of probably over 300 comics (I found myself at a rummage sale with comics at 50 cents a comic, some good finds which I’ll write a post about later) that I have to read. That’s well over 4 weeks of comics, rummage sale stuff, a few random Ebay purchases, and Free Comic Book Day acquisitions. Hope everyone is doing well, I’m not gone, still around, and will be back exceptionally soon. I will be getting my undergraduate degree in biochemistry in EIGHT DAYS!
April 5, 2008
Just FYI
Just letting everyone know, I’m ridiculously sick, and can not make it to the comic book store, I’ll hopefully be up and running again within the week. Atleast my internet is back now though.
March 29, 2008
LOLcat of the week (from Tuesday, but late)
Hey, my internet has been out, just passing through a friend’s place, and remembered I’d uploaded the lolcat for tuesday. I thought it was real tricky.
March 20, 2008
Review: Wolverine: Origins #23
No, this isn’t the correct cover at all, my usual method of getting the cover art is not working this time.
Lead-up to the Story
Well, not too much really. Part one started with Deadpool trying to kill Wolverine, probably because he was hired to. I think that’s it; the last two issues have been pure fighting pretty much, it seems like this is probably premeditated because Deadpool, at times, seems to have a plan. He did drop a piano on Wolverine though, and called him a Canucklehead; that should be all the leadup you need, right? This is Deadpool, it’s not supposed to make sense!
Plot Synopsis
Wolverine: Origins is written by Daniel Way. Very similar to the lead-up information I gave, this comic is about a fight between Deadpool and Wolverine, complete with Deadpool’s inner monologue, which seems to contain two voices. This multiple personality deal is unexplained, but humerous none the less. The fight itself was eagerly anticipated, because the only other time they met, as far as I know was in the Cable & Deadpool issue entitled “Wolverine & Deadpool,” in which the fight lasted all of…. one panel. Wade Wilson got decapitated, and well, that was it. In this issue, Wilson struggles to fend off the formidable Wolverine, while simultaneously dealing with the very minor problem of having his fingers removed. There is an odd scene in which we see someone walking into a room with a captain America costume lying on the bed, and then Wolverine gets hit with an explosion, something that he seems to deal with a lot. This brings up two problems for this reader. The first of which is that Wolverine’s healing factor seems to have skyrocketed in effectiveness recently, possibly due to the way it was portrayed in the movies. Secondly, it was a freaking explosion! That should do more than the slight cosmetic damage we’re shown, I know his healing factor has been put into overdrive for no known reason recently, but there should be more damage than that! The comic ends with both of them inflicting mortal wounds upon each other, and ending in a somewhat homoerotic pose, ‘dying’ in each other’s arms.
Art Critique
The artist for Wolverine: Origins is Steve Dillon, an accomplished artist who is well known for his work on Preacher and Hellblazer. Unfortunately, he just can’t seem to get Wolverine’s face right. It is apparent from the first few pages that there is something distinctly wrong about him. Most of the problem is in the eyes I think, or at least that’s where the problem starts. Wolverine is a damaged goods; he’s insane, he’s also calculating and methodical (they even address that in this issue), but he just doesn’t look it. He just either ends up looking happy, surprised, or constipated. This is all very unfortunate, and I am putting down Steve Dillon a lot, but be sure to understand, I do not dislike his art, everything else is very good, he just doesn’t seem to have gotten Wolverine’s face correct enough for me.
Is it Worth Buying?
If you have ever wanted to see the showdown between Wolverine and Deadpool, this, and the two issues before it, are worth purchasing, but otherwise, I would say “not really.” Nothing in this run of Origins really strikes me as fantastic, however, the under-par artwork is saved by Daniel Way’s incredibly good grasp on how Deadpool should be written, it’s funny, there’s a joke in the middle of a fight (which I stole and retold yesterday), and Deadpool is flinging around half-formed insults like it’s his…. Well, it kind of is his job, isn’t it?
March 17, 2008
My Reaction to the Recent Batman Comics
Usually I am partial to writing a full blown review of a comic if I want to share my feelings on it with all of you. The last two issues of Batman (673 and 674) certainly merit being reviewed; Grant Morrison is a phenomenal writer, and Tony Daniel does a fantastic job with the artwork, but to be honest I just didn’t get it. I was able to follow most of it, but I found myself skipping back pages, trying to figure out if there was something I had missed or not picked up on. I will admit however, that I am not the world’s largest wealth of knowledge when it comes to Batman, and that might be part of the issue here, but I have never had such a problem following the story before. This does seem to be what Morrison was going for though, as Batman himself appears to be incredibly confused by what is happening, and he is far more intelligent than I, or so I’ve been told. One thing that I was particularly upset by was that I could not tell at times who the speech bubble was directed at, and sometimes, the narration seemed to be part of the dialog maybe? Did anyone else find this? It may be that I am just missing something obvious.
