a blogger?

 

a blogger?

is that what I am? I check the ever declining post count that sits aside the years that scroll down the side of the page like a dipstick being plunged into my own personal history. more frequently coming up empty.

am I a blogger?

 

sometimes I wish that I still was. I still have a blog that exists, but everything is changing. The Internet is changing. Attitudes are changing. Interests are changing. I am changing. And blogging is a strange lost art, not just to myself but to so many creative outlets that I used to ponder over and draw inspiration from.

Now I see bland advertising and twee snapshots of happy lives that link to instagram profiles. I'm sure that somewhere out there my happiness lays in wait, but I've never the time to look for it.

 

And I mourn my own lack of writing. This is my diary. A public domain documentation of the person I am happy to present for display. On occasions I even read my own prior blog posts and smile at who I was, and feel proud that whatever was inside of me in that moment has been captured, and preserved perhaps forever.

 

So am I a blogger?

I'm certainly not a career-minded brand that exists in every corner of the world wide webs global reach. I'm too tired for that. The internet seems to keep displaying bad timing as far as I'm concerned. I haven't got the energy, and the energy I do have I am putting into other things that I am not always annotating.

I've got meals to make, a house to keep clean, a garden to tend to, a wife to support practically and emotionally. I'm sometimes exhausted by life, but I still want to be more.

 

But am I a blogger?

Right now, I am a comic book writer. I've only just started and I don't imagine my first run through will be particularly amazing, but I have wanted to do it for a long time, and I decided that October would be when I become that thing that I want to be, I'll just have to find time to be all those other things I still want to be.

And perhaps I should blog about my comic book writing, I'm pretty sure that is something I would have enjoyed reading about in the blogging hey-dey of whenever it was, before the whole world fitted in my pocket. Perhaps I will. Or perhaps I won't.

 

And I'm trying to tweet more often. Not for any real reason other than to stay sane and determine that I have things to say that are more interesting than boring things, but that is only a matter of opinion anyway. I am still slightly fascinated by twitter, not as a 'social network' (if that is still a thing...) but as what I always remember it being referred to when people referred to it and it was a novel idea... as a 'micro-blog’. Where I can think things, and express them, in miniature.

It's more time effective for a start to dash off a handful of sub-140 character nuances that nobody will read than to spend time crafting an exemplary display of the written world which will hobble onto my blog to be read by no-one.

But right now I have chosen to take my thoughts, mush my fingers all over a touchscreen and conjur up a rambling stream of consciousness that I shall drop onto my once well-attended soapbox and I've enjoyed the chiming sense of release that such a practise emits.

 

I call this a blog post from a far-too infrequent blogger.

 

 

Afew thoughts on Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts

Well this nifty little package features a cheap looking toy of some strange robotic animal that also appears to be some sort of featured villain in this DVD release, along with some other dubiously designed animal-bots that appear to be throw-backs to the knock-off transformer toys of my youth, plus superheroes, apparently quite a few superheroes. And Batman.

Of course, And Batman.... this is, after all, Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts.

So let's get this straight.... A redesigned animated Batman, robo-animals, super villain team-ups and then chuck in Green Arrow and Flash alongside an already present pair of sidekicks and I would guarantee that this feature length cartoon should be written off as a disaster, a shameful toy tie-in or child-centric superhero brand recognition exercise.

I'll humbly admit that I was wrong. I tuned in with low hopes and perhaps for the first twenty minutes could have turned off convinced that I was right and may have been wasting my time. A lot happens quite needlessly, some of my favourite heroes pop in sporting wardrobe choices that the jury are yet to pass judgement on, but thankfully the action is under way, and it rarely lets up.

Villains of an animal based appearance take centre stage to kick off the caper and before you know it we have the good guys all on scene in Gotham. Origin stories, introductions and exposition go hurtling out the window and any real sense of canon is deliberately mishandled and left ambiguous, ripe for discovery as the adventure plays out...

Bruce Wayne knows Oliver Queen is Green Arrow, we have two previous Robins reporting for duty as Nightwing and Red Robin. But this seems to be everyone's first encounter of Penguin and Man-Bat. Flash's secret identity is never even addressed...

All these curious threads and more are dangled like nerd-bait for those that like their continuity to be regimented and follow comic book tradition. Yet the story is never dumbed down at all and it is best enjoyed if you simply strap in and go with the flow.

If it has flaws then they are easily forgotten and happily forgiven as a real sense of fun sits at the forefront of this potentially polarising team-up that somehow seems to go someway to follow up the magnificent Brave and Bold series and meet a high standard against almost impossible odds.

 

Having a laugh? Jared Leto's Joker.

As is inevitable in this ever connected society, people giddily sharing, shouting about or snidely remarking on certain 'geekier' developments in the world make it difficult to keep myself from seeing the things that I may not want to see.

Case in point: Suicide Squad.

I relented to my own curiosity and peeked at the first cast photo, just to acquaint myself with the talent on display, I briefly glimpsed the initial morsel of Jared Leto that now seems a red herring with fanboys and theorists clamouring to point out the allusions to The Killing Joke.

But before I even knew I'd have to start avoiding the first full image of Leto's Joker it had been splashed across facebook.

And I don't like it.

I'm not a fool. I'm not gonna simply shoot my mouth off and say it's wrong and gonna be terrible. Geeks have been burned before by exuberant expectation and unfounded ire. We've still got a massive promotional trail to get through, heck, they've gotta start shooting the bloody thing!! And all we have to go on is one out of context image that didn't even hint at any kind of mystery or subtlety.

But I still don't like it. I would at least walk you through what I think are my rational decisions.

Obviously previous big-screen incarnations of The Joker have been about re-envisioning or reinventing something that has already been firm in our memories, from ’66 to ’89 and again in 2008, each new portrayal had to break the mould of the previous and this new version is no exception, so allow me to scrutinise a little further...

The deathly pale, skinny, manic look of a deranged crack addict... I can live with this.

Bright green hair, a single purple glove and either some pimped out teeth or a hygiene problem (possibly even both?)... This could all work, I'll let it slide.

But the one thing that bothers me the most is those tattoos...

 

The grin synonymous with The Joker tattooed down his right forearm, a skull in a jesters hat and repeated Ha Ha Ha over the chest and arm, again it is proved that subtlety definitely was not a consideration for this project. And this is without even mentioning the dubious facial tattoos and other ink that is just about visible without being fully revealed.

Now we could discuss versions of the Joker all day, but in my mind I have never taken his chaotic tendencies to be easily placated long enough to endure multiple tattoo sessions.

This is clearly only casting aspersions but the overall tone seems to paint our new Mr J as a ruthless street thug. To me he looks more like a real-life obsessive Joker fanboy.

And with my imagination running on overdrive here is where I start to piece together my own wish-list of boxes this new DC cinematic universe needs to tick.

What if this isn't the Joker? What if this actually is an obsessive fanboy, a street thug, possibly the chief of operations that is at pains to prove himself to his boss... The real Joker.

Following Heath Ledger's near legendary portrayal I was holding out for a more laconic and brooding spin on the character, a darker and much scarier villain that is less likely to be seen cracking a smile. And with so many indicators pointing towards Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns as a major inspiration in these next formative stages, the Leto Joker image that we've so far seen feels like a rather ill fit.

Having said all that I have been thoroughly enjoying the way that TV's Gotham has been playing hard and loose with established mythology to create its own world that borrows liberally from what we know and refines it in its own image to defy expectations, and all this fuss created is still based on just one image and not a lot else, I'm curious to see where this will all eventually lead and I'll do my best to keep an open mind until we get there.

 

 

so, who would be a #BetterBatmanThanBenAffleck ?

this article was written for and originally appeared on Faded Glamour



We geeks sure do like to get riled up.

News is delivered to us via the Internet, and then we vent via the Internet, making sure everyone that may be privy to our streams or comments will certainly know exactly what is on our minds.

Ben Affleck is Batman, no different.  I'd seen endless tweets and opinions before I'd even managed to find a legitimate news source to confirm that this wasn't merely wild speculation.

#BetterBatmanThanAffleck was soon trending, animals, emos and slobs all in costume, and memes of Matt Damon filling Robin's hotpants were widespread, but amongst all this, can we have some serious debate?

Although he certainly wouldn't have been my first choice to fill the role, the choice doesn't fill me with horror or nerd-rage, his divisive turn as Marvel's marmite Daredevil seems to be a main sticking point for those against the idea (personally, I liked the film) but memories of Gigli are long gone following star turns in The Town and Argo.  On top of all this, he knows his comics, is friends with Kevin Smith and has a chin that works for a superhero that will have little else on show.

Let us not forget that Michael Keaton had people up in arms when the Beetlejuice star was announced as Tim Burton's vision of Batman in 1989 and any harsh words against Heath Ledger's casting as The Joker following Brokeback Mountain, were soon silenced with his now legendary performance.  But if not Affleck, then who do you seriously want to see in the famous cape and cowl?

Going on the strength of rumours that the upcoming Man Of Steel sequel will draw inspiration from Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns (Zack Snyder's big reveal of the planned sequel was preceded by a quote from the 1986 comic miniseries) the aspects likely to be used will be that of an older Batman than we have seen on the screen before, possibly coming out of retirement to face off against the Kryptonian, and one hell of a first fight between a mortal man and an immensely powerful alien.

My initial suggestion of Clint Eastwood (now aged 83) was probably pushing the believability of sci-fi and fantasy to its limits, sure he's got the menacing growl and Gran Torino proved he is still not to be messed with, but swinging from rooftops... probably not.  My next name plucked from thin air was Harrison Ford (aged 71) who could easily bring his best brooding to the film, and the latest Indiana Jones flick shows that he has still got an action hero inside him after all these years.

And then I hit upon a genius casting choice that I can't believe hadn't been put forward already, it's time to really rile up the geeks, and bring back George Clooney.

When he first donned the Batsuit he was fresh out of ER, looking to cement his move to the big screen, and got swept up in Joel Schumacher's neon kitsch-fest that was too busy pandering to Arnie and trying to sell toys to be taken seriously, but times have changed, the Bat-nipples are a distant memory and Bane is now considered so much more than just Poison Ivy's moronic piece of muscle.  And what about Clooney?  He got over it, he came out of a bad situation that sunk the Bat-franchise and could have sunk his career, but instead he took on roles that proved his worth with Out Of Sight and Three Kings.

Now, at the ripe old age of 52 (11 years on Affleck) George Clooney still maintains his chiseled features and eligible bachelor status, perfectly suited for a role as aged socialite Bruce Wayne, time and time again on screen he has proved his versatilty and after 15 years, now could be his chance to return back in black and right the wrongs of Batman And Robin.

Impact Detonation

oh, 90s comic books, what a bizarre, long and twisted love/hate relationship we have.

a relationship that I have revisited since loading a bunch of CBRs onto my gizmo, ready for reading without un-pollybagging my old issues.

back when I first laid hands on my new gizmo and took it to the Lake District with me, I powered my way through Contagion and Legacy, two back to back Batman arcs that spanned the Dark Knight Detective's titles and various spin-offs.

from what I can remember now, Contagion was so-so, and Legacy was marginally better due to the returning threat of Rās Al Ghūl, his daughter Talia and the reveal of her new suitor as Bane, making a welcome return but becoming an ultimately squandered character, since he could never really replicate the impact made since his debut in the Knightfall event.

And the problem was that after such wide spanning, multi-issue, crossing-over, behemoth storytelling that had spun Knightfall into two separate strands of Knightsquest and the seemingly concluding chapter of KnightsEnd, the last thing Batman fans really needed was another all encompassing threat to the comics world and to wallets.

which was exactly what Batman fans got when the KnightSaga span off into the rather oddly timed Prodigal and the runt of the litter Troika, which I have just finished re-reading.

very briefly, Prodigal deals with the fallout of KnightsEnd and the return of Bruce Wayne to the mantle of the bat, who then very swiftly hands it over to Dick Grayson, former Robin. Rendering the climactic climax of KnightsEnd slightly anti-climactic. After this 12 parter, Bruce Wayne comes back proper, unveiling a new batsuit (black, rather than blue and grey, and kind of pointless) and tackling Russian criminals running around being a bit rubbish all over four separate bat-titles with collectors edition embossed covers.

And that was that really, these flailing add-ons that did little to shake things up following such whopping, game-changing and era-defining cross-overs.

It was the age of comics that dragged me in, entertained and enthralled me, but to be absolutely honest... it did have a number of lows lumped in with all those highs.

The 90s was a boom era for new comic books, new artists and new tricks, I still have such a fondness for those days gone by, the regular trips to Barnet or Tottenham to stock up and get my comics fix for the week, yet all the sugar coating in the world won't change the fact thatTroika was perhaps really over stretching the gimmicks, the crossovers, and the reader's patience at the time.

save me

#firstworldproblems

one of my favourite twitter hashtags, detailing the hardships in life that many of us have to deal with in developed counties

my own contributions have included jabbing non-touchscreen devices in confusion and the glare from sunshine making it difficult to read my gizmo in the garden

and now I have a new pet peeve to add to this list, for today I am suffering a great loss...

today I lost the preferences I had been building up on Zite

for those that do not know of Zite, it is like a magical oracle that gathers suitable reading material from all over the interwebnets, basing it's selection on tags that you approve, websites that you favour or block, and simply choosing whether you like or disliked an article you have just read.

in its early days it may throw up plenty of crap that you have no real interest in, and it is your prerogative to exclaim your disdain in such useless information, but given time it will adapt to your tastes and very rarely throw up a dud, ever

mine almost always displayed plenty of comic and superhero news, a smattering of music and film, with a side portion of interior design.

so of course I would want this tailor made reading experience to also be present on my sinister phone

I'll just download the app, sign into my profile and the magic will now also be in my pocket all of the time.

except it seems that I have never actually activated a saved profile, and in my haste to sign up and register my perfect fit Zite, I seem to have deleted all that I once held dear

and now I am back where I started months ago, mercilessly dipping in and out of articles in order to express my likes and dislikes and to block anything vaguely political or too America focused.

while there are clearly bigger issues facing the world right now, this is my own personal current crisis and my latest first world problem.

was it worth the weight?

i may or may not have mentioned previously that I have had to frustratingly wait to see The Dark Knight Rises (ok, that is a downright lie, I know I've mentioned it)

and I know that I have previously mentioned what the weight of expectation can do, and how crushing it can be.

(and I think my brother wood appreciate the use of a homophone in the post title)

and since I shared my opinions on Batman Begins to quite a good response, I guess I should take a critical look at The Dark Knight Rises too.

*WARNING PEOPLE -I dare say there may be a few spoilers ahead*

the first thing that struck me about the movie was Bane's voice.

I hated it.

some bizarre autotuned English aristocratic accent that instantly got my back up, I found it incredibly jarring, more-so than Bale's overly gravelly Batman tones on Dark Knight.

I wanted to get up and run away, I didn't know if I could really cope with it.

the Bane I have always imagined was probably greatest informed by the BBC Knightfall radio play, or possibly by my own imagination, and his origin going back to the fictional Santa Prisca in Latin America

Tom Hardy certainly looked imposing, but the voice was preposterous.

of course I didn't turn and flee from the IMAX, even if I hated every moment of the film I would have still sat there and just bitched about how retarded the whole thing was afterwards.

and it was the next scene that really brought the film into focus for me, Bruce Wayne hasn't been living his life as a billionaire playboy in the eight year gap between films, he has been living as a recluse.

And nor is this just a ploy to allow his night time activities to go unnoticed by Wayne's peers and colleagues, Batman has not been seen for eight years either.

I believed that the intervening years would be filled with outlawed heroics as the Dark Knight fought to stay ahead of the cops that would be hunting him down, I believed Batman would still be lurking in the shadows, that there were stories to be told that filled the gaps, that a rogues gallery would have developed over the time that we have not been a witness to.

But this was not the case.

and that was when I realised that this Batman truly belongs to Christopher Nolan, in my opinion piece on Batman Begins I noted the flaws, the inconsistencies that I wished to have seem carried forward from the comics.

but these Batman myths have been raided and then almost wholly disregarded to build a completely new world and a completely new legend.

'my' Batman would not have disappeared for eight years, 'my' Batman would not have given up so easily, but this is Nolan's Batman, and this is Nolan's Bane, funny voice included.

and Nolan's Batman certainly deserves high regard, as the trilogy ties together well and presents a complete story.

The weakness that took Batman to breaking point in Knightfall, the mass breakout of Arkham that had already been pilfered and incorporated into Batman Begins, is instead substituted for eight years of losing his edge, losing everything he had become.

The legend of Rās al Ghūl comes full circle, as do his wishes for the fate of Gotham that I felt was not fully delivered on in Batman Begins, in a far more epic and far more disastrous fashion.

sure the film wasn't perfect, but what film is? even the regarded pinnacle of the trilogy, The Dark Knight, has a number of stumbling points that can be easily exposed if analysed.

but the fact that Nolan made a concluding chapter that didn't let me down is admirable, that he made a film that for the most part sidelines Batman himself in favour of building the story around other supporting characters is a brave move indeed, certainly something that has been many times before in comic book stories, but rarely in a big screen effort that so much is riding on.

and despite initial misgivings and the expectations that I had tried not to give into, when the final credits rolled I had been blown away by what I had seen, an epic final chapter that definitely delivered, a well-rounded world of intriguing characters that borrowed from the comics that I know and love, but refused to treat them as a definitive scripture.

these were the things that went through my mind after just the first viewing, I may revisit my opinions when I inevitably revisit the film, and I may shed light on some spoiler-shaped gripes I have, but I can honestly look back on this trilogy and say I enjoyed it.

well done Christopher Nolan.

a busy mind

I lay in bed while my girlfriend is snoring next to me.

I'm cursing the alarm that I thought that I had turned off last night, yet still went off at half eight this morning, I curse that I cannot now get back to sleep

it has been a while since I have actually managed to get a really good lay in, to wake up later than intended feeling rejuvenated and harbouring no real guilt over the hours of daylight missed. it is an affliction, that my mind is too busy, and once it has been turned on it is hard to turn off again.

I wake up. and then I think.

I've thought about the comic that I didn't finish reading in bed last night, I thought about how my girlfriend told me that recently she has been counting herself to sleep and has rarely made it past 60 seconds (and I can certainly attest to this), indeed, this morning she has stirred a handful of times already and just rolls back over to sleep, whilst I have laid there hoping that I may succumb to sleep yet again, just til half ten or 11, have a real lazy morning.

I have thought about a couple of music apps that I downloaded last night, and how I might hope to record them and incorporate the Be Bot into my own compositions, I have thought about the lamp shade I want to buy from B&Q and that I probably need some screws to put the boards up in the geek room so I can get a move on decorating the final wall, I have thought about upshire car boot sale, and putting the washing out in the garden, and about writing a blog about thinking too much.

and sometimes, I wake up, and I do.

springing out of bed, leaving it unmade as I launch myself into the first task of the day, be it painting, loading or unloading the washing machine, washing up, tidying up, sweeping up.


I am proud of my aptitude to wake up and start achieving things on my day off, but some days, like today, I really would just like a lay-in.

and so it begins (again)

finally, the date is almost upon me, I have been avoiding tv spots and trailers and keeping myself from social networks and the geeky websites I would usually frequent in order to avoid any foolish spoilers, but soon, very soon, I get to see The Dark Knight Rises at the IMAX

so in preparation, I have been gorging myself on Batman, re-reading my well worn and well loved Knightfall graphic novels yet again, dipping into a Rās Al Ghūl focused Tales Of The Demon graphic novel that I picked up a while ago at Krypton Komics at a bargain price of £3.95.

and tonight, fresh from hosting the Olympic opening ceremony, my projector and living room wall shall tonight be showing Batman Begins while I try and relax myself, possibly with a sailor jerry and coke or possibly a whisky in hand.

I shall be tuning in, same bat time, same bat channel tomorrow for a showing of The Dark Knight.

then finally, yes finally, Thursday I shall be hoping that my expectations have been kept in check and that Nolan has delivered a well rounded trilogy and not tripped at the fine hurdle (obligatory sporting/Olympic anology)

my virtual micro-festival weekend

what a truly wonderful weekend it has been, so wonderful that it even managed to distract me from the fact that I had turned almost thirty.

I received some wonderful gifts, mostly Batman related, some I had asked for and others that I hadn't, surely testament to how well people know me (or how my geeky reputation precedes me).

and of course, it isn't all about gifts, indeed, how shallow life would be if it was... I am also grateful that I got to spend the weekend with a bunch of great people that dropped round my house for what was intended to be a micro-festival in my backgarden but I couldn't be bothered to make a huge amount of effort for, so was more like a standard houseparty except there was a tent pitched, a couple of acoustic guitars knocking around and a miniature drum kit set up.

perhaps next year I shall arrange a small P.A system and a brief running order of performers (I doubt it tho) but with drinks flowing, some good music, a go on singstar, a couple of jam sessions in the front room, acoustic singalongs and a Batman cake (given as a present) I must admit I wouldn't have changed it at all.

i was surprised and relieved to wake up (quite late) on Sunday morning and still feel vaguely human, after drinking a combination of cocktails mixed by my girlfriend over lunch, Pimms punch (a present from my mum) throughout the afternoon, vodka and cokes (a Morrison's savers vodka, not the Jamie Hewlett designed bottle of Absolut that my girlfriend had bought as a present) throughout the evening and Sailor Jerry and cokes (yet another present that had been bought for me that day) into the early hours of the morning, I am thankful that I was still in control of my senses and my stomach lining.

with a slightly sore head and a dry mouth, sudden and brief downpours and the sound of music drifting into the house from my next door neighbours shed/boom-boom-room, it felt almost as if we were waking up at Glastonbury

and the festival vibe was far from over, deciding that we were up to it and that the weather may hold out (although, of course we took waterproofs) we headed out to check out the opening weekend of the London Pleasure Gardens at Poontang Dock, taking in the views of the Thames Barrier park before venturing into the new festival site, not exactly knowing what to expect...

and it was certainly unexpected, within a few minutes of arriving we had gazed upon art instillations, watched a colliery band cover Kanye West and witnessed stilt walkers twirling flags.

with no real agenda of what we wanted to see or do, we found ourselves watching eighties one hit wonders Musical Youth, joining in a hokey cokey world record attempt, and finally experiencing the surreal genius of Glastonbury legend, Woody Bop Muddy.

we even bought a Disney Christmas record from a charity stall before hopping back on the DLR and heading back homewards, where me and my girlfriend made splendidly low maintenance meals, drank hot choc, ate cake and watched half of an actually funny rom-com.

and as the weekend drew to a more than satisfactory close, I kept my eyes open long enough to take in the first chapter of 'The Court Of Owls' (thanks Mike)

storytelling

so let me tell you a tale

it is a tale that you may be familiar with

the young Hunchbakk was a bit of a geek (what do you mean, what's changed?) and used to frequent a couple of local-ish comic book shops, one of which was Krypton Komics in Tottenham, just a stone's throw away from Seven Sisters station, my dad would drive me down there pretty much every weekend so that I could spend my pocket money on the latest Bat-titles that had been released

this must have gone on for perhaps a couple of years, until i reached the age where being more social was becoming more important and me and my friends would be out playing football or going to the cinema or going into Enfield Town and buying extra value meals from McDonalds, I can't remember why exactly, but I was reading comics less, and weaned myself off my weekly fix

i'm not saying that I was solely responsible for a downturn in business, but somewhere in the intervening years Krypton Komics disappeared from the High Road, something I duly noted on one of many nightbus journeys home


as detailed before on this blog, my Dad reawakened my inner geek with a Christmas present a few years back, and in this time comics have become ridiculously expensive and I have to sate my appetite for all things superhero with the occasional bargain graphic novel if I am lucky enough to find such a thing, and whatever Enfield's libraries seem to be carrying (currently a couple of Batman/Superman collections and Superman: Secret Origin).

perhaps finally I am getting closer to the point I am trying to make...

as we return once again to Krypton Komics, that had long since carried on as an Internet mail-order service, and which my little brother reliably informed me had recently relocated to an actual old fashioned physical real-world shop in Walthamstow.

so one sunny afternoon earlier this year I impulsively decided that I needed to make a pilgrimage to this new store in search of a specific back issue, I dragged my brother along for the journey and I walked away contended

in my arms I carried Legends, Millenium and a UK reprint Superman comic that is older than I am (with it's free gift of a postcard still attached) which I had paid a meagre sum for considering

and as my brother walked away from Krypton Komics he noted the imposing and run-down building that dominated the opposite side of the road

he stopped to take a couple of photos of the dilapidated building that appeared to be home to some kind of church network,  and now it's image adorns the very first Giles Babel t-shirt

more musings and hero worship

fanatics, fanboys, geeks.

whatever you want to call them, these are the people that hold art and culture dearest, and these are the people that it is dangerous to mess with.

get it right, and they will continue to sing your praises.

get it wrong, even just a minor mis-step, and some fanboys find it very hard to be forgiving.

this is certainly the case whether it is music geeks, film geeks, or, as proved recently by the 'Before Watchmen' debacle, comic geeks.


and i think the truth behind these issues is that as fans, we want our heroes and our icons to be infallible.


and when we start dealing with sequels, or prequels, or a follow up of some sort, you are running a risk.

you are increasing the chances of a work held in high esteem becoming tainted, or lessened somehow.

there is also the chance that an original premise could be improved upon, but when people have such an emotional investment in these works you are also gambling with people's memories.

we often have our personal reasons for such deep investment, some that go deeper than others, whether it is an album that saw your through a particularly rough patch in your life or reminds you of fond memories, or perhaps it is a film or a story that just connected with you, or opened your eyes to something you had not experienced before.

these are the types of feelings and emotions that people connect to art.

we could be talking about Greedo shooting first in the Star Wars special editions, the introduction of Jar Jar Binks and midichlorians in The Phantom Menace, we could be talking about the movie adaption of The Da Vinci Code or the long-threatened American remake of Akira, it could be Jay-Z's Blueprint 2 (and 3), it could any modern take on an old idea, whether it is the Wicker Man or Star Trek,  and it could be the increasing expectations for Christopher Nolan's final instalment in his Dark Knight trilogy.

and we are most definitely talking about Before Watchmen.

break the internet in half

it was in october of last year that i was starting getting edgy.

i had just heard some bad news.


the article was titled 'the phone call that confirmed Watchmen 2'

and i read it, with fear


a couple of previous posts had talked creative teams involved and it all felt more real.

but Bleeding Cool seemed to be the only place suggesting this, other blogs rubbished the idea as a shock tactic to generate traffic, apparently they had said something similar a couple of years ago and nothing materialised.

one particular quote resonated....

Darwyn Cook, when asked what he was currently working on, answered that he couldn't say, but that it "would break the internet in half"


fast forward

2012

Mayans apparently predict the end of the world

scarily, they may have got it right, as on February 1st, the internet broke in half

straining and cracking under the weight of all the angst and ire generated by geeks around the globe.

the day that DC comics announced their 'Before Watchmen' project.


6 mini-series focusing on the back-stories of individual characters and on the original Minutemen, followed by a one-shot would tie an overbearing story arc together, in addition, there would also be a back-up 'pirate' feature that runs across the issues.

and with a heavy heart, i must admit that this seemed inevitable, much like someone coming along to transfer a favourite comic or book onto the big screen (whoops, they already tried that with Watchmen, didn't they), we must recognise this for the money-making scheme that it is first and foremost.

DC comics, as part of Warner Brothers, is a business, a money hungry destructive business that only has it's sights set on one goal, making more money than it already has.

DC already survived a major shake-up last year when it announced plans to 're-set' a lot of its comic book history, wiping the slate clean for some characters (although not for all) and renumbering all of their issues from number 1 again, this got a lot of fans angry and up in arms about the whole move and the way fans were being treated, yet, when all was said and done, these new issues sold by the ton, reprints of all first issues were needed and the market share was captured.

and we can even look at this now as testing the water, to see how many fans truly did drop off, or how many simply moaned about the whole thing, yet bought regardless, possibly bought more out of curiosity.

if they could do this with DC's main players, the heavy hitters, the whole damn universe, then why would their next target not be Watchmen.

and the geeks have only brought it upon themselves.

there was never going to be a boycott of the new 52, not one that mattered anyway.

and similarly, sales of Before Watchmen will probably be through the roof.

i can't deny, they have brought some top talent on board to handle this rather sensitive subject, and no doubt, these creators will have the utmost respect for Alan Moore's vision, who in comics wouldn't? and when you get that call, asking you to be involved in a massive high-profile project that will no doubt earn you a fair few quid, i'm sure you would rather ride that thing than let the opportunity slip past you, into the hands of someone else that you may not trust with the comic book's rich legacy.  whether any or all of the creative teams involved can do the stories justice will have to wait to be seen.

i'm sure, out of the entire project, that we will see at least a couple of good yarns, heck, they may even pull this thing out the bag without dropping the ball at all.

but that doesn't mean that i'm happy about it.

(but that doesn't mean i'm not curious too)

Female Superheriocs in the DCnU and the quest for more boobs

i may not have had time to write about it yet, but i have been making time to catch up on the brand spanking new DC universe that has been ruffling feathers since September '11.

ok, so nothing is further than the second issue as we speak, and i've been working my way through a handfull of the #1s after reading Flashpoint and making the decision to completely bypass Blackest Night and Brightest Day since they haven't even happened now anyway, oh wait, hang on, or have they, bloody hell, all this confusion needs to be saved up for a DC confusion specific post

what i wanna focus on here briefly is the role of females in the new DCnU

forget stuffing them in fridges and depowering them, the females characters that i have read so far have all basically been sex on legs, prancing around in underwear for the titillation of presumably teenage boys and lonely geek men as if they were some kind of 2D stripper, oh, have you read Voodoo?! that one actually is a 2D stripper....

again, i think i'll touch on the bigger problems elsewhere, but lets take a closer look at Catwoman shall we

how close do you want to get....

ok, so that is just the first page.

and since this is the DCnU, this is your introduction to Catwoman.

no wonder people are up in arms about this, we're being flashed more boob than we're seeing face and it kind of sets the precedent for what follows, until things get even more full on...

one thing i don't usually believe in is spoilers, yet i'm unsure if this spoils anything since the issue is low on story and high on the boob count...

so, what happens next, well, she escapes from her apartment, yet still hasn't managed to dress herself properly,   she goes about her business tracking someone down, in disguise, but with her boobs hanging out, and by the end she is humping Batman... seriously, check out this blog for proof

and if you don't mind the prospect of having to burn your own eyes out, stick with me

c'mon, stay with me...

you ready...

aaaaaaarghhhhhhhhhh!!!

don't you just love simpsons fan-art inspired by overly sexualised comics.

i know that i don't.

sorry.

Batmeme

i love Batman

and the internets love Batman

he has provided some classic moments rife for internet riffing


and since it is still on topic if you've been following recent blogs, here is a classic for you to enjoy

women in refrigerators

so lets continue from that cliff-hanger ending

as i am sure you are all desperate to know what happens next!

y'see, i didn't even realise at the time the comics were published that Kyle Rayner's significant other ended up sharing space with Green Lantern's milk and sandwich ham, and i had no clue that her bizarre death actually served as a springboard for a movement that focussed on the humiliating, severe or just plain old tragic circumstances that see so many female comic book characters suffering.

the Women in Refrigerator movement saw a list produced of superheriones and female supporting cast members that had been "either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator", those on the list of particular relevance to my own reading habits and my own blogging include Barbara Gordon's Batgirl (who was paralised and tortured at the hands of The Joker), Donna Troy (who seems to get a pretty bum deal everytime there is a universe wide shake-up) and other DC heriones such as Wonder Woman, Huntress, Black Canary, Jade, Starfire and Zattana seem to have been abused, raped and stripped of powers between them all.

and there is also the saga of Gwen Stacy, Spiderman's squeeze that met an unfortunate end when Spidey's attempt to save here ended in the worst possible way.

I love that Gail Simone (who went on to write, among other comic books, Wonder Woman, Action Comics and Birds Of Prey) got her knickers in a twist in such a huge, attention grabbing way, and i love that the whole premise of the argument is based on a hacked up female that has been rammed into a fridge.

Some of the points are entirely valid, and some points are irrelevant to me, but i can't help but feel, particularly wth the case in point Kyle Rayner, that for the sake of the story, and to properly convey the desired effect, those closest to the hero will suffer.

Perhaps i have missed the point slightly, and i will agree that there are a sizeable number of instances where female characters seem to miss out on all the luck, but losing parents at a young age or even losing your parents, your home planet and the entire race you belonged to are still gonna be pretty tough on the guys too.

promises, promises

we in England have been promised an Indian Summer all week, it finally decided to arrive today.

most people pray that our country's pitiful amount of sunshine will actually land on their day off, but i tend to be quite the opposite.

whilst other people may relish the chance to laze about in the sun on their day off, i actually see it as an inconvenience, for whilst we are supposedly living in the future and so much of our lives depends on keeping our social networks up-to-date, i would much rather break away from the computer when the sun is shining, which means that remix-work or writing or blog-posts will likely go AWOL whilst i seek to spend my few hours away from housework out in the garden or on the sun-drenched streets.

owning your own home becomes such an enormous burden, waking up on a beautiful day to find that this unseasonal warmth means the bedclothes need changing, and of course the bedroom needs sweeping, and clothes need putting away, and the washing up too, not to mention the fact that i want to finish a remix that needs to be submitted today, when all i should really be doing in basking in the sun like a teenage mutant vitamin D obsessed turtle.

so with housework done, i proceed to prepare for our unseasonable Barbeque, it will be the first of october on saturday, today, on wednesday, just three days prior to that traditionally autumnal month, we are experiencing heatwaves and planning for BBQs, just a shame that the sun still seems to set at some time just after 7pm.

so i google some vegetarian BBQ recipes, head off to the Co-Op down the road to pick up a couple of ingredients, and then later, with my dishes ready to marinate and a couple of sailor jerry and cokes down myself, i proceeded to make room in my fridge for the influx of beer that i expect.

jars of olives and capers are repositioned, and tubs of philly are moved.

which reminds me....

didn't i say i was gonna post up some ol' draft blog posts...

last week i had gone looking into Forbidden Planet for a couple of back issues of some DC comics (that i never managed to find), particularly the DC Retro-Active line of comics, featuring stories by writers and artist from the '70's, '80's and '90's.

i was looking out for the 80's era Superman issue, anything featuring Batman, and the '90's era Green Lantern.

y'see, i liked Kyle Rayner, of course i liked Hal, but i was also quite into this new age of comic books that seemed to be occurring around me and the new blood in superhero talent that seemed to be taking over from some of the old guard.

of course it was all a marketing ploy back then and given time the status quo would be restored (hmmmmmmmmm) and of course, the new Green Lanterns and Green Arrows and whatever else would be usurped by their predecessors given time , but i didn't realise that then.

anyways, much like most plotting for modern day comic books, i have no idea where i thought i was going with this, but i do know that i told you guys that i was intending to shed light on some almost forgotten blog-posts, and y-know what, as fate would have it, the oldest of those posts actually does pertain to circa '90's Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, and a rather unfortunate predicament his girlfriend found herself in..



see....

this is almost practically relevant to my BBQ preparations.

i had to find room in our fridge for all the chicken and other marinated meat that were likely to turn up.

and yeah, a bad guy stuffed Kyle Rayner's girlfriend in a fridge.

i might explain further tomorrow if the sun isn't shining.

otherwise you'll have to wait.........

we're going through changes

so, as of this week, everything changed.

except some of it didn't.

not that i'd know too much about it, having just finished reading Battle For The Cowl and still not having touched Blackest Night and Brightest Day yet, let alone Flashpoint.

yeah, i'm talking about comics!


not only was the 31st of August 2011 an important day in my household, being the first anniversary of getting the keys to the house and going in and cleaning everything before settling down for a pizza and a night on an air mattress, it was also the day that followers of the DC universe may or may not have been waiting for, as the comics company swiped away a whole bunch of history and began re-numbering issues from #1, starting with JLA #1, ahead of 51 other other titles that shall be following shortly

i won't be clamouring to pick up a whole barrage of number 1 issues, to be honest, i doubt i'll actually buy any, there won't be much on offer to me as a comic book fan other than the chance to get slightly obsessive and delve back into the addictive world of buying monthly issues of comics, that i left behind some 11 or 12 years ago (not counting a slight blip buying the english reprints that got me hooked on Grant Morrison's run on Batman)

if there are stories worth reading that evolve from this 'new universe' than i shall consider stumping up for the collected trade paperbacks to find out why Superman doesn't wear his red pants anymore, why oh why can Barbara Gordon walk again and will Green lantern devise anymore crotch-mounted artillery?


these are comics tho, and i wonder how long it'll really be until the real reasoning behind a new universe is revealed, or how long until whatever changes are made are reversed, or rewritten, or forgotten or maybe just borrowed from in the next big shake up that will inevitably follow at some point or another.

but if i'm losing you... perhaps hear this guy out and see just why these changes are so important...

it's the geeking weekend!

not that weekend's hold any real importance to me at all, i shall still have to be in work tomorrow morning for what will be my 6th day working in a row, having juggled days off around so that i can go to my girlfriend's cousin's wedding sangi dance on sunday and to a cricket match on monday

so how do we roll on a friday night?

we flick through the ikea catalogue before watching the rest of the Harry Potter film she fell asleep during on sunday, we then quickly pay a credit card bill and discuss home insurance before sticking on another Harry Potter film that she promptly falls asleep during.

leaving me to finish off reading the last couple of issues of Battle For The Cowl instead of having to watch the same film twice over

i'm not quite sure if i'll get the chance to complete a geeky trinity of Harry Potter, Batman and Doctor Who this weekend, as i've been informed that a friend is coming over for dinner and is insisting that we watch Sex and The City

so i have been given permission to hide away in the bedroom and read comics and i shall have to play ketchup after this Bank Holiday weekend's excitement, and for those that have missed it so far, there is a little web-exclusive prequel to the returning Doctor Who knocking around, which i shall stick

right

about

here



and no matter how emotional the mid-season finale or this prequel may be - i still can't help but wanna laugh out loud everytime i read that:

The Doctor will return in

Let's Kill Hitler

rising

scroll down the page.

what do you see?

right now, at this very specific moment in time, you will be bearing witness to an unholy geeky number of superhero videos and one superhero film review...


and what have i got for you today?


hell yeah! let's balance the whole thing out by bringing you more blooming superhero videos, and of course, when i say balancing out i actually mean that i am tipping us all over into a superhero filled abyss full of home-made Rocketeer costumes, Papercraft X-men and where the memory of Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl still looms large!!

bwa ha ha ha ha ! ! !

ahem, sorry about that...

back on track... obviously the internet is all a-buzz at the minute over any miniscule drip-fed tidbit about Christopher Nolan's third and final Batman flick due in 2012.  Casting details and barely revealed character designs have already sent fans into spasms, and now we have a teaser poster and teaser trailer in order to tease us further

i held off watching it on my computer in favour of actual big screen (hinted at) action and i didn't have to wait long, catching it among the trailers before Harry Potter and The Fully Realised Franchise last night

but for those that have no such issues over size or simply wanna watch it again, here it is



and that is it, it doesn't give away too much other than, it has Batman in it, Gordon will at some point be laid up in hospital being rather mumbly, and Bane will look pretty mean.

we have not even the merest hint of Anne Hathaway's role or appearance as Catwoman that has been bandied about since she joined the cast

i'd love to say i'm excited, but i'm not, not yet anyway.

excitement leads to expectations, and more often than not, expectations lead to disappointment.

i'm already disappointed that they called the film The Dark Knight Rises, being such a cop-out that they should have maybe just called it The Dark Knight 2.  I can imagine movie executives upset that after the success of The Dark Knight, idiotic punters being bombarded with publicity may not be able to understand that this film is the sequal if it had anything other than the words The, Dark and Knight in the title.

some considered it a brave decision to not include the word 'Batman' in the title of a Batman film, worked out ok by the looks of things, but now we are denied a opportunity of a real title for the third installment.  a shame.

and Bane?

i am completely apprehensive about his inclusion, obviously comic book readers are aware of his pivotal role in the Batman titles from the 90s which was somewhat lost in translation completely when he appeared as a muscle-bound goon following Uma Thurman's Poison Ivy in the ill-fated 1997 flick.

whilst some fans are hoping for this Knightfall arc to come across in The Dark Knight Rises, i can't help but think it would be the wrong idea, as much as i would love to see Bane redeemed in the eyes of the movie-going public, the thought drawing upon this story where bane masterminded a mass break out from Arkham, undoing Batman's life work, and weaving it into what are presumably Batman's early years just seems like a huge mis-step.

i'm certain we won't see any back breaking or a replacement Dark Knight in a film that should be tieing everything together, so is Bane the best choice over the earlier reported Killer Croc or the lesser known Amygdala (since we have already seen the barely known Mr Zsasz, albeit briefly, in Begins) or even bringing the sadistic Zsasz back to make the stories cyclical.

if Nolan can turn in a decent tale, and re-imagine Bane and Catwoman in the same way he has reinvented Two-face and The Joker than there will be nothing to fear, but with the The Dark Knight Rises not even due until next summer, we have a years worth of waiting until we find out for sure.