On Hiatus...

Taking a break.

Be back next year.

When come back, bring pie.

What I Like About Marvel's Incredible Hercules...

...besides the fun script and cool looking art? The sound effects. I especially love the sound effects.





and my personal favourite:
This one reminds me of Shooting Stars whenever Reeves and Mortimer introduce Ulrika Jonsson, "Ulrikakakakakakaka". What can I say. I'm easily amused.

I wouldn't have thought Incredible Hercules could wow me so much. Coming out from the ashes of World War Hulk, I thought Marvel lost the plot when they gave Hulk's book to Hercules of all people. But it's been a great read so far. Even the Secret Invasion tie-in is interesting. 'God Squad'. Hah! Almost made me want to read the actual Secret Invasion mini series. Almost.

The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia (Del Rey, 2008)

Ten years ago, Star Wars uber-fan Steve Sansweet and Timothy Zahn wrote the Star Wars Encyclopedia, a comprehensive primer to everything Star Wars. Everything Star Wars in one 300+ page book. This was in 1998 and since then there have been the prequels, the Cartoon Network Clone Wars, the video games, more comics and even more novels. So obviously the encyclopedia needs an upgrade and here it is:

That is the slipcase that holds the three volume Star Wars encyclopedia.

Some notable Darths. I don't even know half of them. Must have appeared in the comics and novels.

The volumes contain just about every character and events that happened in the movies, comics, novels and video games. The Skywalkers and the Solos get a lot of column inches obviously but that Imperial commander standing behind Vader's right shoulder in that scene in Empire Strikes Back also gets an entry. So that's nice.

Even this guy gets an entry. He was one of the ceremonial guards at the rebel's Yavin base during the medal ceremony. His mom must be so proud.

All in all, it's a very entertaining set of books for the Star Wars nerd. Though if you can't afford it, there's always Wookieepedia.

Friday Night Fights: KA-POW!! round 4

This week's fight is from G.I. JOE #84 (Marvel, 1989, by Larry Hama, Marshall Rogers & Randy Emberlin). The scene: Cobra Commander approaches Zartan for the first time in a biker bar. It was the beginning of a long and not so beautiful relationship.





By the end of that issue we discover that Zartan became Zartan that we know because of Snake-Eyes. Cobra Commander set up terrorist organisation COBRA in part because, in his mind, he blames Snake-Eyes for the death of his brother. And G.I. Joe existed to combat COBRA. So it was all Snake-Eyes fault!

Wanna know who else blames Snake-Eyes for their problems? Check out Spacebooger.com

I Guess This Was Normal Behaviour Back In The 40s

So we catch Bruce Wayne give his ward Dick Grayson six of the best one morning...

Look at Bruce's face. The guy's enjoying this.

Seriously, what the hell?? I bet you Jason Todd would have kicked Bruce Wayne in the balls if he had so much looked at Jason funny. And people were shocked, shocked!, at All Star Batman.

From The Batman Chronicles vol. 6

Watching the Watchmen HC (DC, 2008)

Watching the Watchmen is a retrospective look by the guy who illustrated the ground breaking limited series, Dave Gibbons. What with the movie version scheduled to hit the screens in 2009 and Alan Moore more or less having burned his bridges with DC, it's up to his collaborator to pony up some stuff to fill a 250+ page coffee table book. And I fell for it. Now don't get me wrong. Watching the Watchmen isn't a complete waste of money. Gibbons shares with the reader some trips down memory lane: his first meeting with Alan Moore, the genesis of Watchmen, his and Alan Moore's status from nobodies in the world of American comics to superstars after the success of Watchmen among other tidbits. Intersperse that with pictures of Watchmen merchandise, Alan Moore's first draft and a lot of preliminary sketches of the Watchmen characters, and you get a quite interesting book even if you, like me, don't really care about sketches.

But then we reach the bulk of the book: a "dissection" of Watchmen issue by issue. Unfortunately, it is nothing more than Gibbons rummaging through his files and giving us a look of his thumbnail sketches of each issue. And Watchmen was a 12-issue series. So a lot of page after page of rough pencils that were later inked, coloured and lettered. Big whoop.

Okay, the book was advertised as an art book and Dave Gibbons is primarily an illustrator and serves me right for hoping to read about a comic book's history in an art book but dude...valuable trees were chopped down just to print Dave Gibbons test pencils of Watchmen before he actually sat down and drew it for real?? Even a budding artist would find that boring.

Wait till next year after the movie has ended its run. I guarantee you this book will be in the bargain bins by then. Get it then if you still want it.

(The book comes with two different covers. The more commonly advertised one with Dr. Manhattan and the one you see at the top, with the Comedian's mug leering at you. That's the version I bought. Other than that there are no other differences).

Because Sometimes...

...you just need to see Batman & Robin take a ride on an inflatable giant hand.

From Showcase Presents World's Finest vol. 2