Geekiferous

Why Rob Granito Hits Us Where We Live

2011-03-29T13:38:43Z

As everyone has probably already heard, Rob Granito is a plagiarizing conman. He claimed to have done work for DC and Marvel, been the secret hand behind Stelfreeze and, hilariously, to have worked on Calvin and Hobbes, and sold direct copies of other people's work with a few scribbles on top for hundreds of dollars. Not the usual pose tracing for a different use or character, but direct copies, with perhaps an arm moved slightly. And he did it for years.

Guest-blogging ahoy! Darwyn Cook and 45-year-old comics fans

2010-09-04T13:17:15Z

Hey, I've been scarce lately. But there's a reason! I was writing this for Heidi MacDonald's The Beat.

Does the Man Have a Point? Aging fanboys, continuity, "perverted" fanboys and Loxy the Dancing Bagel.

The Completist - Nomad: Girl without a World

2010-09-02T04:29:50Z

If you've been reading Young Allies (reviewed here) or her backup features in Captain America, you may well be asking yourself "Who is this Nomad person and why should I care?" Created by the same team that brought you Young Allies, Nomad: Girl Without A World will answer that for you.

Comics that deserve more press - Prince of Power 4 of 4

2010-08-29T03:43:09Z

This is a follow-up to my earlier review of the first three parts of Prince of Power, available here.

Two words: Epic. Win.

Not only in the colloquial sense - amazingly great - but also completely literally. Amadeus Cho succeeds on a level easily equal to anything you'll find in a vast, universe-spanning tale of gods and heroes.

For those of you playing along at home who may have missed the first review, let me explain why this is relevant to your interests. Imagine you took Tim Drake and Lex Luthor and put them in a blender. And then dropped the brash, brilliant, ferociously loyal and frequently overreaching product of this match onto the same playing field as the Greek and Norse gods. Do you see why this might be relevant to your interests?

For the first three issues of this four issue miniseries, Amadeus has been, well, losing. Losing entertainingly with brilliance and style, but losing.

Yeah, that changes.

Movies that deserve more press - The Losers (2010)

2010-08-27T03:11:28Z

The Losers is probably the best example of a movie that deserves more press all summer. And conveniently for you, it just came out on dvd! Do you like action movies of the people-making-quips, ridiculously detailed heist schemes and humorously over the top action variety? Good. Now imagine that precise brand of humor turned up to eleven, and done perfectly. Congratulations, you are thinking of The Losers.

And that's, unfortunately, why it didn't get good press, I'm afraid. No one let the critics know it was a comedy, and without a laugh track or Will Ferrell, apparently they couldn't tell. Philistines.

Basic plot? Oh so basic. Covert ops team sold out and framed* by a villain, back to clear their name. But oh, the style, the plot twists and characters. Sheer action movie gold.

Not sold yet? Just look at the cast. Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I will elaborate.

After you fail to conquer the Earth - John Ringo's The Tuloriad

2010-08-23T04:47:36Z

I enjoyed The Tuloriad on a number of levels. It was a sympathetic exodus and rebuilding story... about the man-eating alien invaders. Which in no way minimized or forgave the fact that they, you know, used to eat people.

The Posleen/Legacy of the Aldenata series starts with man-eating alien centaurs who are well-nigh unstoppable roaming the Earth and eating people. The Posleen, as they are called, have very little mercy or empathy or culture of their own. How could beings like that have a society let alone reach the stars? In the later books, culmnating in The Tuloriad, Ringo and Kratman go back and look at the earlier books and say, basically, no they couldn't, that's not natural. Something changed them and made them that way.

This leads to the central question of the Tuloriad: Who did it to them, why, and can the Posleen change themselves again, this time into something better?

Less than super - Steve Rogers Super-Soldier 1 & 2

2010-08-22T02:49:40Z

No one will ever notice a guy in primary colors with a big white star on his chest!Lo, it came to pass that Steve Rogers was resurrected, but Ed Brubaker didn't feel like giving him back the title of Captain America yet because he was having too much fun writing Bucky/Winter Soldier/James Barnes/You know, that guy in the role.

And yet people wanted to read about Steve. What to do? Why, give him a new title! Enter the mini-series Steve Roger: Super Soldier. Yes! It will be gritty and realistic!

The gritty, realistic world of robot femme fatales and super soldier serums.

Anatomy doesn't work that way - Young Allies 1

2010-08-20T00:47:30Z

Dear comic book artists.

I know you love your fully articulated Uhura action figure. So do I! But actual humans do not have a smooth ribcage devoid of ribs attached to a ball-jointed belly piece.

Even if the bottom of the ribcage is visible there's supposed to be a smooth transition from the one part to the other thanks to, well, healthy muscle and organs. And if you are so starved that there's a huge notch between the bottom of your ribcage and the rest of you, your ribs would most assuredly be visible.

I guarantee you you will never see this on an actual human being. Never.

Comics that deserve more press - Young Allies 1-3

2010-08-19T04:53:51Z

Yes, he has horns.This book is amazing. Why am I hearing no press on it? None. A book featuring heroes who are teenagers that is not secretly about Teen Angst™ or, indeed, High School in any form? Wow. Where they're actually competent and not emotionally overwrought or dysfunctional? Double wow. More to the point, it's a new comic and a new superhero team that's just plain good and doesn't feel like a contrived copy of some other team book.

In fact, dirty little secret, it doesn't come off as a team book at all - it comes off as a team-up.

Comics that deserve more press - Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade

2010-08-16T03:56:52Z

Not exactly Rob Liefeld Supergirl, is she? Thank God.Once upon a time DC Comics realized that little girls liked Supergirl stuff, but they didn't have a single Supergirl comic or graphic novel safe and suitable for little girls. So they created one. Precisely one. And then they stopped.

(Never mind that Billy Batson and the Power of Shazam survived two mediocre years for no particularly good reason.)

This is that graphic novel.

Kara Zor-El, Superman's cousin from an alternate dimension, randomly gets stuck on Earth, Clark pops some glasses on her and sends her to school (his answer to everything) and cue middle school adventures. The comic is obviously aimed at girls just young enough that middle school adventures sounds awesome - that is, kids who are too young to have to endure the hell that is middle school.