BIG BANG BOOM

Catch up on TV reviews:

Big Bang Theory continues funny — although I am disappointed that Leslie dumped Howard…guess they’ve decided the boys just shouldn’t date for any length of time.

SciFi ran a Eureka marathon and we caught the Best in Faux episode…still fun, but still not as chock full of quirky goodness as the first season. New episodes coming in July and there’s a Eureka comic out there…

Sonny With A Chance also continues funny…always enjoy a good ensemble comedy with physical flair.

Wizards Of Waverly Place (the brain switching episode) made me cry with laughter — great funny, physical stuff from Selena Gomez….movie should be fun.

The Earth Day episodes on Nick were interesting. I thought the iCarly one was very funny and took an interesting tack by pointing out how difficult it can be to judge what’s actually going to help. True Jackson didn’t really pound the green message but was a fairly good mix of silliness and laughter. Greg Proops always turns in an excellent comic performance.

Hatching Pete was not a big hit…Jason Dolley went up a few notches on my can handle a romantic lead chart, but the directing did the story no service…for a movie with so much action, the camera moved too much…I think you can have a choice, move the actors or move the camera, but unless you’re really good, do not attempt both.

Finished watching the Wonder Woman DVD…visually very very nice, but I thought the voice talent and script weak…Hades reminded me way too much of the villainess from The Little Mermaid and I was very glad I had rented and not purchased.

Caught the first half of the new teen Iron Man show On Demand. Didn’t enjoy it…not fond of that style of animation.

Star Trek getting the big culture buzz (FT bio of J J Abrams, big Entertainment Weekly article this week) but I still have my doubts about Chris Pine as Kirk. He seems to lack physical and command presence; Kirk isn’t a smolderer. Pine was cast in The Princess Diaries 2 to be less commanding than Anne Hathaway and I think Gary Marshall’s instinct have been proven to be spot on more often than not. What comforts me is that I saw a meet the characters promo on Nick and McCoy seems to have retained his wry sense of humor and Abrams has done an INCREDIBLY good job casting actors (yes, even Zachary Quinto — did you not see him go gay and bitchier and funnier than Tori in So Notorious) who can do comedy — banter and flirting of all kinds is essential to the Star Trek universe in any reboot.

I think that’s enough for now — lunch is calling…well, it would be if I knew what it was…

GO GET FREE COMIC BOOKS ON SATURDAY (5/2); it’ll be fun.

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES + SMALLVILLE

Mention it and suddenly it’s all over the web. Blog post with spoilers and pictures of the Legion Smallville style(and the visiting future villian reveal). But we have to wait ’til January…

WARNING: IF YOU HAVEN’T EVER READ THE LEGION OF SUPERHEROES THIS WILL MAKE NO SENSE SO CHECK OUT THE MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM CARTOON AND SKIP TO ANOTHER POST — poetry, Shakespeare, movies, weather, Disney, books, art — I’m sure you can find something.

The Legion Omnicon Blog with some comment and links and an i09 blog Legion roundup of “is there a future for the Legion and will it contain Geoff Johns(writing Smallville episode) or Keith Giffen or Paul Levitz.” I vote for Giffen or Levitz or whoever they vote for. They had some of the strongest runs on the Legion ever.

So maybe I can stop working on the blog entry nobly offering to put the rest of the things I do on hold(after Shakespeare this summer, of course) and revive the Legion. Jim Shooter’s version has been too over the top with sex and traumatic violence — tangent: did anyone see this Sunday’s Mother Goose and Grim; they do the groaner pun better than anyone else on the funny pages); plus Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl are the foundation of the Legion, along with Cosmic Boy, who has been too absent.

So while we’re on the Legion thing and since I will be shelving my why I’m such a comic geek and should get the reboot job post(and yes, I bought a Flight Ring and thought they should have offered a 10k gold version), here are my Legion thoughts and memories in no particular order…

The Great Darkness Saga is the reason I started collecting comics — I had to buy my brother’s copies because he wanted to keep them in the bag and I wanted to read them…do something of that caliber, with that level of echoing consequence without resorting to the easy and obvious. Giffen’s reboot five years into the Legion’s future was exquisite, entertaining, crudely drawn, sometimes brutal but great. Levitz’s run was phenomenal; Light Lass’s return to her lightning powers is a fantastic story. My favorite Legion characters/couples — and yes, if you’re not a Legion fan, you won’t realize everyone has a favorite couple: Dawnstar and Wildfire — Wildfire was missing from the current incarnation; it’s the future, have a character made of disembodied energy, it’s cool and a very interesting dramatic problem; Lightning Lass and Shrinking Violet, they earned their relationship the hard way, they really work together, just go with it; Brainiac and Supergirl — Brainy and DreamGirl started out ok but is way off the rails now, besides Nura and StarBoy worked and didn’t work excellently; Matter Eater Lad is essential as is the young Clark Kent — although Supergirl and the Legion combined well. As I said Cos is essential; I hadn’t really been missing Timber Wolf, but he fit with the Projectra storyline, Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl always rocked…

And enough nostalgia. The Legion starts out with three strong characters, goes from there and if you’re going to reboot, do it with good writers not just blasts from the pasts. Be brave, daring and visionary. Blow up Earth again if you must and make it a personal story, make it matter. Too often the Legion is just an army up against a stronger, differently limbed army. Do those three things and then I can be excited about the Legion again. I miss that. It came back, but started to slip away before Shooter’s return and now the thrill’s gone. I’m frankly glad not to see what else Shooter was going to have the villains paw.

I am looking forward to Smallville. And seeing what develops from there. And I’ll go back and reread Johns’ Legion of Three Worlds issues. I gave them a quick skim and liked more than dissed.

SMALL PRESS EXPO ROUND UP

Well, I promised the full round up and as I’m waiting for youTube to process the new Gullible and Twitchy, I’ll give you a quick overview.  Haven’t been down since we bought the house, so had some trouble finding the new location, but big hotel on the outskirts of Bethesda and no longer within walking distance of the California Tortilla (so we did snack, comics  then real food…Gayle sat in lobby reading Elizabeth Peters’ latest Vicky Bliss book and keeping my purchases company).

Usually, there’s a must have hit of the convention t-shirt, but this time it was posters, bright intricate colorful posters under every other person’s (and there were a lot of persons clustered in the aisles) arm. When I found the poster guy, it was a hard choice — great graphics and I really loved some of the black and white stories, but the colors were just too rich to ignore so after much hmmmmming, I acquired “Rock Meets Cloud“which at least had a bit of pirate adventure flair, Mark Gonyea aka Mr. Oblivious is the artist responsible and we had a short discussion about colors — people tell him that blue and brown are going to be hot.

Signed up for the RSS feeds from the previously mentioned “Geeks Next Door” and “Sticky Rice” and am enjoying the thrice weekly updates. Haven’t figured out where to put the stickers or the print yet.

What else is on my desk? A Dave Roman postcard for “Astronaut Elementary“; Rupert by Michael DiMotta, a beautifully illustrated story of a man and his wanting to borrow the car goldfish; “That’s Just Super” by Rob Ullman, about the perils of being a superheroine in love, and Hilary Florido’s perfectly tuned manga take: “I Love Love (too bad I hate you)” — it made the too too short caused me to be surprised by laughter list.

Oh and I have yet to order prints from Paul Friedrich of Onion Head Monster but I’m going to try to make room in the budget for some.

SMALL PRESS EXPO

Well, if you’re in the Washington, DC area and you’re reading this Saturday night or early Sunday morning, you can still make SPX, my favorite comic convention. You can get a cool variety of indie art for $40 — or more. I just stick to $5 or less, although this year, I did spring for a $10 item.

Quick highlights(more later):

Book I paid the most for/Laughed out loud the most*: Onion Head Monster Attacks by Paul Friedrich.

Tie for cool nice people/things I will sign up to follow on line: Sticky Rice by John Lucien Grillo and Geeks Next Door by Jessi Bavolcak and Matt Pascal.

T-Shirt I wanted to buy but didn’t fit in the budget: Martin Hsu’s Dragonboy

*I only bought things that made me laugh — good criteria for the spending of cash. Especially when conventions seem to attract comics with zombies and nipples, and probably zombies with nipples. So give me humor, please. Especially if you want my money/attention. Bleeding funny doesn’t count.

BANNING BOOKS

Well, that’s one of the arrows the New York Times pulled out of its quiver and shot at Sarah Palin and frankly, it’s one that I care about.  Me and a whole bunch of librarians.  I didn’t know there were librarian websites until I Googled Sarah Palin + book banning.  Apparently, it’s an activity where I draw the line and toward the top of my list of unAmerican activities (although Gayle pointed out, it is actually a very American activity, but I’m on Ben Franklin’s side — let ‘em read.)  So is this Democratic “liberal media” made up boogeyman stuff or do I actually require a written apology saying well, that was the day I was smoking marijuana and wasn’t quite myself.  My constituents made me do it doesn’t really cut it.

 

Aside from the book banning accusations, strong speech, amusing sarcastic puncture wounds in the Barack Obama bubble.  I would really like for there to be a Steve Rogers (RIP Cap), Clark Kent or Lois Lane to vote for, someone on the side of truth, justice and the American way that Frank Miller, Alex Ross or some other comic high flyer hasn’t darkened yet. It’ll be a long two months I think; I hope not an even longer four years.

 

NYT article:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/us/politics/03wasilla.html?bl&ex=1220587200&en=a5543a98005b8c75&ei=5087%0A