Hey, Apple, still plenty of good pickins in comic books

Apple has been looking at streaming original content for awhile but is, apparently, ramping things up.
The comic books big celluloid has chosen so far has been interesting - from commercial to weird. Why the subset of The Mystery Men was chosen over it's parent, The Flaming Carrot was always baffling.
Anyway, here's a list of some of the comic book content yet to be tapped

• American Flagg
• Black Kiss
• Grendel
• Flaming Carrot
• Enemy Ace
• Aztek Ace
• Magnus Robot Fighter
• Kabuki
• Astro City
• Xenozoic Tales
• Black Hole
• Hard Boiled Defective Stories
• Maus
• Rac Shade, The Changing Man
• Warlock
• Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu
• Metamorpho
• Deadman
• Blackhawks
• Mister X
• Ms Tree
• Sandman (Wesley Dodds)
• Scout
• Machine Man
• Big Bang Comics
• Eight Ball
• Bacchus
• Brat Pack
• Lady Death

I could go on & I am sure my minions will add more

Hollywood Fucking Up Comics

This 8/13 episode of Robot Overlordz gets into how Hollywood fucks up comic book characters when they discuss the documentary, The Death of Superman Lives, the Tim Burton / Nicholas Cage production. A big thing is respect and, no Hollywood does not respect the comic book industry. Maybe because it is so New York centric?
But, hey, nobody else respects comics - comics are for kids - movies are for adults.
This article in the Daily Mail discusses the remains of a woman buried with weaponry who archaeologists dubbed Red Sonja. The Mail cites actress Bridget Nielsen who played her in a horrible movie but gave no credit to author Robert E Howard nor comic book creators Roy Thomas & Barry Windsor-Smith.
oh well, people seem to like these crappy comic book movies, so...

The Death of Superman Lives Trailer:

Free Comic Book Day

dorks
Happy Free Comic Book Day, geeks

Is Daredevil In The Golden Dawn ?

nonononono not that Golden Dawn, this Golden Dawn.
Sure, he had a hot Greek girlfriend in college, but Matt Murdock is Roman Catholic not Greek Orthodox. You people slay me.
Anyway the shot, above, in the opening credits of the new Daredevil series shows a symbol very similar to the occult group's symbol
DD was no stranger to esoteric mystic poop but he never went the GD route when I read the comic. Maybe he did in later years. Maybe it's a new path for the little screen series.
Maybe it's a coincidence.
MAYBE they could introduce a right wing militant Elektra!

Don't Give Fox Another Chance

It appears Fox TV wants the rights to The X-Men.
Comic book super heroes are science fiction. Science fiction requires $$$ to produce. It takes time to develop the characters & universe. It would take less if you just used what was already developed but Hollywood knows better. But Fox wants instant results and has killed science fiction shows too many times.
Let somebody else develop comic book TV. Fox isn't mature enough & will just ruin franchises for other companies to produce. The X-Files came along when Fox had nothing. It would never have lasted a season nowadays.
Fox, step away from the art boards...

Marvel v. DC but no Gold Key?

This'd be fun, but, of course, the dark forces of American lawyers would be sure to fuck it up like they fucked up Dan Turpin's funeral.
Anyway, why not bring in Doctor Solar & Magnus Robot Fighter just to really jazz things up?

Dark Side of the SDCC pt2

WXIX came up with this headline for this story about sexist behavior at the San Diego Comicon.
I never really did the comic book convention thing and when I did, there weren't that many people dressing up in super hero outfits. The WXIX story discusses how women who dress up like super heroines & fantasy characters, they resent people taking pictures of them. Sorry, that's just part of going out in public in a crazy outfit.
However, blogger, editor, and writer Valerie D'Orazio has brought up other issues that are not ok. She found the working staff at comic book companies to be very sexist. She also noticed at conventions, the fans love getting their pictures taken with the comic book creators. Most of the fans are geek boys and they usually stand next to the male artists & writers smiling. But when they pose with the females, they are always putting their arms around them. The XIX article claims much groping of the women is common. Dunno if the hugging is part of the groping. The thing is, it goes much deeper than what XIX covers.
Here's the deal, if you go out in a weird costume, expect people to oggle, but your right to swing your fist ends at my nose. That is, keep your hands to yourself.
If you've seen The Big Bang Theory, those guys are not far off. Most comic fans aren't physicists, however.

Dark Side of the SDCC pt1

I was at a parade recently and a couple people who were 'caught' by the parade were really surprised when a police officer informed them that they could not drive out onto the street against the parade.
Similar arrogance was seen in San Diego the other day when motorists were 'caught' by a Zombie Walk parade held in conjunction with the San Diego Comicon. The walk was not an official function of the Convention.
While most all the drivers accepted the insanity, one driver couldn't tolerate it, started blasting his horn and began to just force himself through. As parade members expressed their outrage, hitting the car & it's windows, the driver decided to just pound down on the accelerator as he drove through the crowd. One person was hospitalized and may not have even been involved with the parade.
Police have said that charges will likely not be filed.
More here

Hey Hollywood !

Everybody knows it. Everybody is thinking it. But nobody will say it.
OK, I will. Hollywood should put Aztec Ace on the big screen. A guy from the 23rd century with a penchant for jazz & Coca Cola, who lives in an ancient Aztec pyramid who goes globe trotting & time traveling with his girlfriend Bridget & the floating, disembodied head of Sigmund Freud in an effort to save the space time continuum couldn't not be a success.
But, Quimbob, doesn't Hollywood fuck up everything it touches?
Well, yeah….
oh well...

More on Ace

Hawkgirl

Long before Victoria's Secret started putting wings on anemic super models, alien crime fighter, Shayera Hol from Thanagar, donned wings & fought crime on earth with her old man, Carter.
I always liked Hawkgirl. Besides her loose fitting tank top, I think part of it was that she was married and thus, not always hopelessly pining over some goofball. Apparently, she made great sandwiches, too.

Horror Sells

Jughead's gonna eat yore mama's brains…
Yes, the Zombie Apocalypse has finally reached bucolic Riverdale in a new release from Archie Comics, called Afterlife With Archie.

Cincinnati Comic Book Convention

The Cincinnati Comicon is this weekend, Friday through Sunday at the Cincinnati Convention Center. It just keeps growing (think zombie apocalypse) and this year will spread out to the Hall of Justice (think Union Terminal).
This year's show features Bernie Wrightson, Arthur Adams, Geof Darrow & Walking Dead creator Tony Moore!
Geek out, Porkopolis!
UPDATE: oh bloody hell, this convention is at the NKY convention center. But don't put your spandex away just yet - The Cincinnati Comic Expo is at the Cincinnati Convention center Sept 13-15!
Visit the website if you dare…

Her

This movie about a guy falling in love with the home secretary computer system thinagamabob has got Glenn Beck in a tizzy. I guess it's just one more of Glenn's harbingers of the apocalypse when a geek falls in love with an annoying voice. Probably would have been better made in Bollywood.
Being a fan of the Star Trek TV shows, I must point out that while I had nominal nominal crush on Nurse Chapel, I never had a crush on the computer voice. Now, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda was a different story altogether.A much better robot love story would probably be Donna Matrix, a story about a love droid whose programming gets hacked with some military programming to suit the needs of a pathetic masochist but results in a lethal dominatrix / terminator kinda robot that terrorizes the city & requires the military to put down. This would make a great movie in the hands of Robert Rodriguez.Now, when can we expect a Him movie?

More Goodies Hidden in the Ohio Budget

yup, homage to an illegal alien. Gotta love the Ohio legislature. Besides being an illegal, he is a liberal vigilante who works for the lamestream media.

Gem City News article here

The Dark Knight Rises
These comic book movies are just confusing. I guess that if you don't know the original stories, they might make sense but if you do, it's all really confusing because the timeline is a big jumble. It's not like Slaughterhouse Five or Maus where a single timeline is told in a jumbled way - it's a linear story (kind of) of a bunch of stuff semi based on a mess of elements from the original comics. The fact that the elements in the movie are strewn together kinda like the 2 guys who went to White Castle movie - well, there's not much there. It was fun. Lots of fighting & exploding gizmos & stuff…

NPR is reporting that DC Comics is introducing the first mainstream transgender character in Batgirl. This almost seems like a step backwards, however for a genre full of trans species, biological mutants, radioactive mutants, body swapping, alien, cyborg, ghost, plant-animal characters. Compared to Congorilla & Metamorpho, transgender seems almost pedestrian.

Is It Halloween Yet ?
It's September so it's time for Oktoberfest. I know somebody has an explanation for this but I don't care - it's weird - I live with it.
So I was thinking I should put an Oktoberfesty sidebar girl picture up. While the Sidebar Girl submissions have been pouring in from all over the world, I just wasn't finding the right thing and then I stumbled across what may be one of the most important blogs in the whole world.Oktoberfest Girls. The pics are mainly from Munich's Oktoberfest. Now, I know what you're thinking - what's better than girls & beer & potato pancakes & sauerkraut balls & sausage ? I'll tell you my friend - girls & beer & potato pancakes & sauerkraut balls & sausage AND COMIC BOOKS!
Here in Cincinnati, unlike Munich, we don't fuck around. Our Oktoberfest is held in conjunction with the Cincinnati Comic Expo! So how american is that? Well how about a baseball game on top of that?
The mind staggers.

UPDATE: oh yeah, and the Cincinnati Roller Girls will be at the Cincinnati Comic Book Expo!

When I was a little kid, I got a Superman Halloween costume. It was the old kind, a baggy 1 piece fire trap with a cape & red mask. But it also came with a little cartoon flyer that gave the warning that the suit would not give you super powers. Duh - Supes got his power from a yellow sun. Anyway, it pointed out that donning the costume would not make you impervious to bullets, it would not make you super fast and you would not be able to fly. Even as a kid I thought this was kinda stupid but apparently there had been kids who put on the costumes & jumped off garage roofs (like it takes a Superman costume to prompt a little boy to jump off a garage roof).
I bring this up because people are running around saying certain politicians can and do perform superhuman socioeconomic feats that they really just can't do. They can put on the suit and that's about it. I know they say they do these things but they are politicians - aka sociopathic liars.

Happy Sinkhole of Mayonnaise Day
aka Free Comic Book Day

the elusive "girl in a comic book store"
Saturday, May 5 is Free Comic Book Day. You can celebrate locally at:

• Up Up and Away
• Queen City Comics
• Comic BookWorld
• Maverick's Cards & Comics

Wump Bucket Puppets will be at Maverick's @ 11:30AM. BTW, this is more likely what you'll find:::
The 5th of May is less traditionally celebrated as Mexican Independence day, but of course it just celebrates a military victory by the Mexicans over France. Tacos vs. crepes? Beans vs. butter? Seriously, how could there have been any doubt?
It will be celebrated in Cincinnati's Northside neighborhood with a pig roast by the neighborhood's newest restaurant (so new it doesn't even exist yet) Django Western Taco at Mayday (which actually does exist). />

Economic Indicators
In this day and age I have no idea why housing starts are any indicator of the economy. Heck, it's wild home buying promotions that got us in the pickle we're in today. I understand why housing starts got their clout after WWII but the population growth is sputtering out & a lot of those houses built in the second half of the 20th century were built to last. New housing for some time now should be growing at a pace rivaling M$oft's OS glacial pace of growth. That is - the market is saturated
ScienceFiction.com reports comic book sales had their best January since 2008. Dunno if this should be any kind of economic bellwether - it might just be some kind of ouroboric film / comic book entertainment cycle. Seems as good as using housing to gauge the economy, tho. I mean, what's a house but a place to keep your comic books?