Dinosaurs in F-14s

Minimate Customs: The Rocketeer

2012-01-27T22:20:00.000-05:00

At the top of my short list of dream custom projects is Dave Stevens' the Rocketeer. I just love the character, and the comic, and I think the movie is probably the best translation of a comic to the big screen (not that it's necessarily the best comics movie, but the closest to the source material). The only 1/6 scale figure I own is the Sideshow Rocketeer, and he's also one of the only Kubricks I've bought. Much as I like both those figures, though, they just don't fulfill my desire for either a 6" action figure, or a Minimate. While the action figure remains a Disney-shattered dream, the Minimate is, of course, a different story.....

Presenting... the Rocketeer!

It's taken me a while to get him done, but he very suddenly came together. I made a decal for him ages ago, using (as I so often do) a Cubeecraft template. But, even with that decal, there were some hurdles to clear. For one thing, I wanted to match the burgundy color for his jacket, which I was able to do with the recent release of Calico Jack. His legs come from Chloe Frazer, meaning that, yes, he's wearing women's pants. But wearing them well!

Classic pose!

But, even with his body done, and his decals made, that still left some big hurdles, namely his helmet and the rocket pack. For these, I wasn't going to settle for anything less then perfection, particularly since I've got his wonderful Kubrick sitting here. After looking around a bit, I ended up buying an old Rocketeer PVC figure in order to cut off the rocket pack. It's slightly big, but I think it looks great.

The Cirrus X-3

The helmet was a little trickier. I'd also bought a helmet pencil topper, with the hopes that it would be in scale; sadly, while it looks great, it's too big. The PVC figure's head, while closer, was just a little too small to look right on a Minimate body. So it was back to the decal. While the PVC head was too small, I figured that the fin would be just right, so I grabbed a Spider-Man slip on mask, put on the decal, sliced the fin off, glued it to the mask, and painted the whole thing yellow. And that's pretty much it... but I went a little nuts with the pictures so....


This one's my favorite.

I can't tell you how satisfying this is.

Blasting off!

Cliff Secord unmasked.

And that's that, but for the decals... here ya go, use them in good health:

This custom dedicated to the memory of Dave Stevens

The Million Dollar Cheeto

2012-01-12T14:09:00.001-05:00

There are a lot of ways to waste your money. Lord knows I'm something of an expert. But I've not yet wasted a million dollars. At least, I've not yet wasted it on just one thing. And I've not wasted it on one thing that's a piece of snack food. I wouldn't have thought I'd even have the chance. But the world's a big place, my friends, and so I give to you:

The Million Dollar Cheeto

I've read this thing a few times, and I honestly can't decide if the seller is being extraordinarily sincere, or extraordinarily sarcastic. I mean, lines like

I prayed for a way to enable me to do more for others and aid their needs. In answer to my prayers…I didn't get a million dollars instead I got a Cheeto with a heart! And on the flip-side it smiles!!! No kidding! It’s totally awesome.

could go either way. This auction's been up for over a year now, and he's got 31 offers, and I'd love to know what they are. Is he holding out for the million? If someone came to him and said "look, I've only got $800,000" would he turn it down?

All I know is, if I was in a financial position to literally waste a million dollars, I would buy that Cheeto. And I would carry it with me in it's little box and use it as the greatest conversation stater ever. Perhaps, if a million of us get together and donate a dollar, we can pitch in and buy it and have it once a day for, like, every million days. That sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

Minimate Customs: Crazy Quilt

2012-01-08T00:01:00.001-05:00

Okay, one more custom to post for the big show....

Crazy Quilt

This was just crazy... no pun intended. I don't know what possessed me to make this guy, but here he is: Crazy Quilt, an almost entirely forgotten, thoroughly silly Batman villain. And yet I've always liked the guy. He's somewhat unique among the Batman rogues in that he hates Robin more then Batman. The first time I saw him was in Batman #368, in which the Big Q nearly rubs out the new Robin, Jason Todd. But I dunno, I think I just like bad guys in silly costumes.

The formula here was paint. Lots and lots of paint. Not to mention tears. Paint and tears. This project took hours, and I hated myself the entire time I was making him. But, hey, check out these results! Not a sloppy mark on him! Except there... and there... and there... hurm.

Crazy Quilt is my submission for the "Best Customs of 2011" contest in the Best Paint Job category. He won't win, but he's my best paint job, without a doubt.

Minimate Customs: CM Punk and Stone Cold Steve Austin

2012-01-07T12:17:00.000-05:00

Same as last post, here's another set of customs featuring one entry for the "Best Custom Minimates of 2010" contest, along with a friend. Today brings us two of the best from the world of the WWE. Remember how I said I wasn't as keen about Star Wars Minimates as some others? Well, I feel the opposite about WWE. I think WWE could easily be the most profitable Minimate license of all, since it features a neverending roster of characters old and new, easy variants, and would require minimal new parts. Anyway, here's the only two WWE customs I'm likely to make....

CM Punk

I made Punk while basking in the glory of Punk's WWE title win at Money in the Bank. There, not only did Punk pin John Cena to win the WWE title, making good on his promise to take the championship and leave, he also debuted his awesome new shirt. If I was ever going to wear a wrestling t-shirt (and I'm not), it would be this one. As you can see from this photo, Punk's sporting the limited edition version from that night in Chicago:

Punk's made from a Calico Jack head, Kraven the Hunter hair, Sentry's crotch, and Iron Fist's hand wraps. Even though the Punk revolution ultimately went unfulfilled (somehow, the storyline shifted from "CM Punk vs. the world" to "Triple H, the CEO nobody likes), Punk's rise was still the best thing to happen to wrestling in ages. And here's the decals, so that you can make your own "Best in the World" shirt (maybe you've got an extra Spider-man that needs some new duds?). I just wish I could fine a championship belt in scale to round him out. Oh well.

Stone Cold Steve Austin

Well, you can't just have one wrestling Minimate, can you? Austin was also made because I like that shirt. His head is a pastiche of several of Luke's decals over at the Minimate Factory: his eyes are from the 9th Doctor Who; his goatee is from the Master (and it occurs to me that I could use that goatee to make David Brent... there's next year's "best TV" entry right there!), and his ears are from Tiger Shark. Once again, here are these decals:

And, since you can't make pictures of wresting Minimates without an action shot:

Stunner to Punk!

Minimate Customs: Han Solo and Luke Skywalker

2012-01-05T20:37:00.000-05:00

Well, the calendar's turned over, and you know what that means: time for the "Best Minimate Customs of 2011" contest! You may remember my post from last year in which I showed off a few of my nominations not yet posted. Well, I'm doing the same thing again, but, as I've been much more proactive with getting my work out there, I've only two customs I plan to submit for consideration that aren't already up here. So I'm going to divide them up into two separate posts, each one paired with a like-minded custom.

Han Solo

A lot of people would say that Star Wars is the single most-wanted potential Minimate property; I am not one of them. Don't get me wrong, I like Star Wars well enough, but there are a lot of things I'd rather have first. But, I have to admit, when I started fooling around with Han here, and I could see how well he was going to turn out, I was pretty excited. Not to toot my own horn, but I don't think DST could make a much more accurate Han Solo if they tried. Han here is going to be my entry in the "Best Quick Custom" category, where he'll be defending the title brought home by Shanna the She-Devil last year. Make us all proud, Han! He might also be my "Best TV/Movies/Cartoon" custom, unless I think of a better entry.

This is the part where I usually go over my formula, but to be honest, some of the details are escaping me. I can tell you that his head's from Captain Kirk, his legs are from Blackhawk, and his little belt's from the New Goblin. Oh, his hair's from Bucky, and it's literally my least favorite Minimate hairpiece, but somehow it really fits Han.

Luke Skywalker

Luke came about, mostly, because I got a set of Ninja Stickers from Luke's Toy Store, and had more stickers then I needed ninjas. But the chest decal made me think of Luke's tunic (Skywalker, not Porter), so I put this together. His little skirt thing comes from that bald chick from the first Star Trek movie, his face is from Marty McFly, and his hair from Captain Mar-Vell. The key to Luke, of course, is the Lightsaber, which was finally provided in the Deadpool Corps box set this fall. I spent 20 bucks just to get this thing, but it was worth it.

Here's a photo of the guys together; next post should be up by the end of the weekend.

Minimate Customs: Firestorm

2011-12-30T12:15:00.000-05:00

Firestorm is one of my all-time favorite characters. For one thing, I love his Al Milgrom-designed costume, puffy sleeves and all. It's a shame that his stock has faded so much in the last few decades, because he really was DC's hottest (no pun intended) new character in the early '80s (the latter seasons of Super Friends [then renamed Super Powers] were built around him, after all). But later writers mucked around with him, and he mostly disappeared for several years. There's a new Firestorm book as part of the DC relaunch, but it's by all accounts terrible, and it suffered the largest drop in retailer orders from September through November. Oh well. But here's the classic Firestorm, in all his puffy sleeve glory.

Firestorm here actually shows how much I've developed as a customizer. The original version of this custom that I cobbled together used Ma Hunkel's chest, an unmasked Daredevil head, and Storm's puffy sleeves, with the latter two sharpied red. It made for a passable Firestorm, but that's about it. I've since painted the arms properly, and made decals for his chest (using a logo I found at Customego) and head (starting with Art Asylum's template for the Beyonder, and adding his mask by hand). He's rounded out by Flash legs, Bullseye's belt (with the sides cut off and the buckle painted red), Jean Grey's shoulder pads painted yellow, and a trimmed Ghost Rider fiery top. Just for fun, I threw together Prof. Martin Stein, one half of the original Firestorm Matrix, using mostly a lab Egon Spengler. Perhaps I'll do Ronnie Raymond as well; it will give me an excuse to use those Marty McFly Air Jordan feet I've got sitting around, if nothing else.

Really pleased with this guy. And here's my decals, so you can make a Firestorm of your own:

Eagles Playoff Madness

2011-12-18T19:32:00.000-05:00

As I write this, it's just a little after 7 PM on week 15 of the NFL season. And I'm not watching Eagles/Jets, or Tom Brady vs. Tim Tebow. I'm more interested in the other two games (Raiders/Lions and Browns/Cards, respectively) because at this point those two games actually have more bearing on the Eagles playoff chances. Because, while fiddling around with ESPN's awesome Playoff Machine, I've determined that the Eagles can actually still win the last wild card if:

-They win out;
-The Bears loose out;
-The Lions loose out;
-The Seahawks loose out;
-The Cards loose this week, loose next week, then beat the Seahawks in week 17.

A ridiculous series of events, granted. And, as I write this, the Lions have just taken a 28-27 lead on the Raiders with :35 seconds to play (I knew the Raiders should have gone for two when they went up 26-14! I knew it!); and the Cardinals are in overtime. So the most likely scenario for the Eagles remains:

-Beat the Cowboys and the Redskins;
-Watch the Giants loose to the Jets and beat the Cowboys.

Somehow, I've got a feeling that just might happen. Why not? It's been that kind of year. I'd feel a lot better about this if the Jets didn't look like complete dogshit this week against the Eagles, but the Giants played like farts against the Redskins, so who knows how that one will go. Should be kind of cool, though, to watch the two New York teams play each other with basically the season on the line. Riot either way!

...And it's official: Lions over the Raiders. You know, I chose to ~~illegally stream~~ switch over to that Cards/Browns game because I thought the Lions game was basically over. Damn. And the Cards won anyway. So, really, you can just ignore this post. I'll be back with your regularly scheduled Minimate customs update sometime this week.

Minimate Customs: Green Lantern Corps

2011-12-07T11:08:00.001-05:00

Hey, did you know this is my 100th post here? Considering this blog dates back to May 2009... that's pretty terrible. Oh well. Might as well post some more Minimates....

The Green Lantern Corps

Like most customizers, I've wanted to add on to the Green Lanterns that were released as part of the late, lamented DC Direct Minimates line. I've gotten to most of the ones I had planned (the only one I can think of that I've yet to do is Tomar Re, and I'll just be copying Luke's formula for him). There's at least one guy here that I don't think anyone else has ever done... we'll get to him in a bit.

Abin Sur

Hal Jordan's predecessor is one of the first customs I ever did, and possibly the easiest. He's just a Red Tornado head on a GL body, with a little red sharpie action to cover Reddy's yellow bits. Had I known then how difficult GL Minimate bodies would become to acquire, I'd have bought a dozen of them.

Hal Jordan

And here's where that Hal hair went. I've messed around with ol' Hal a lot over the years; at one point he was wearing this Wolverine jacket, and then this one, but I've settled on this one, and I think that's the keeper. Don't remember who's head that is, but it sure is handsome, isn't it?

Arisia

Now we're getting to the good ones. Hal's sometimes girlfriend was tricky only in that it's difficult to find orange arms and legs. Thank God for the recent bulked-up Things. Her hair's from movie Thor, which I think works really well, and her short skirt's from First Appearance Dr. Doom. And yes, it's really short. But that's comics accurate! Head and chest are decals, which you'll find right here:

Kyle Rayner

Not a personal favorite, but I suppose that no Green Lantern Corps is complete without him. Kyle was DC's replacement for Hal Jordan in the '90s, back when the big trend in comics was replacing all the old heroes with new ones, so I suppose he's always had a bit of a taint to me (that, and, in an effort to get him over as a hip guy in his first appearance, they dressed him in a Nine Inch Nails shirt-- a purple shirt that read, in white letters, "Nine Inch Nails". I resent stuff like that). But Grant Morrison did make him compelling during his JLA run, so there's that. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that his hair comes from Jigsaw, which is really the only part worth mentioning. His face decal is not by me, but by the very talented TENIME, and you can find it here; the chest's all mine, baby, and you can find it here:

Katma Tui

I think I found a Lego decal for her that I modified for her chest, and her head's just one of Luke's decals with a red face. So, not very complicated at all. But at least now John Stewart and Hal Jordan can double date. Oh, her hair's from X-Force Warpath, which is a great hairpiece which I hope we see again. Decals, decals:

G'Nort

Saving the best for last... or the worst? Whichever you choose probably says a lot about you as a person. I love G'Nort, though. First appearing during the seminal Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League International, G'Nort earned his ring because his uncle was a bigshot Green Lantern. Let me repeat that: G'Nort earned his ring because his uncle was a bigshot Green Lantern. The idea of Hollywood-esque nepotism existing in the Green Lantern Corps is just too brilliant for words. Or, again depending on your point of view, too stupid. Certainly, the guys who retconned G'Nort's uncle into being a member of some kind of fake GLC fell in the latter camp.

So G'Nort here's a green body with the Ghostbusters Mayor's vest and the Wolfman's head, hands, and feet. I cannot possibly convey how excited I was when I realized the formula for G'Nort here. Just wish he had a tail.

Minimate Customs: Dream and Death

2011-11-22T10:56:00.000-05:00

Yep, more Minimates. Just bought a printer, which will allow me to print decals out at home (rather then making the shameful trek to Kinko's), so I've gotta clear the backlog out to make room for the new projects. Anyway, I've been sitting on one of these for quite awhile, waiting to complete the pair, which I just did this week. So I present...

Dream and Death

I've made a lot of Vertigo Minimates over the years- some of which you've seen- but the collection felt complete without the Sandman. After all, Neil Gaiman's creation is probably Vertigo's signature character, and Vertigo without the Sandman is like the Justice League without Superman. I suppose that makes his sister there Wonder Woman....

Dream

I tried to make a few Sandman quick customs over the years, but none ever looked remotely right. He's such a distinct character that you just can't fake him. But things became much easier when Sam Haim was released as part of the Real Ghostbusters line; I mean, that robe looks like it was made for Dream. I made a decal using a Cubeecraft template found on DeviantArt, which I'll share right now:

The last- and biggest- hurdle was Dream's great big mop of goth hair. There's simply no existing Minimate hair that works (this is probably the closest), and unless Diamond Select Toys decides to revive their rock line and makes Robert Smith or the Jesus & Mary Chain (please note: I would be very happy if Diamond Select Toys made Minimates of the Cure and the Jesus & Mary Chain), I don't think their ever will be. So the hair would have to be sculpted, and, seeing as how I'm a big fat baby when it comes to sculpting, I turned to Minimate guru Luke Porter, who whipped out the beauty you see here. I did have to paint it myself, though! Oh, the Matthew the Raven accessory comes from the old DC Direct Sandman figure.

Death

Morpheus' big sister might be even more popular then her brother; if Sandman had been a tv show, she'd have been the breakout character. I still see Death at least once at every big comic book convention I attend (and yes, that's exactly how I wish that phrase to read). So making her was a big priority for me. Again, her hair was a trouble spot; this one, from Karma, doesn't really quite capture her goth glory, but it's close enough. Decal's again a modified Cubeecraft template, with some black pants and that cool little bracelet to complete the ensemble. Man, I wish I could remember where I got that from. Sorry, but here's the decal, so you can ~~bring Death to yourself~~ ~~court Death~~ never mind:

No plans to make the rest of the Endless, I'm afraid; I'm happy with these two. They'd make quite a two pack for a revived DC Direct Minimates line, eh?

Minimate Customs: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

2011-11-19T14:09:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to get these guys up here for awhile, so without further delay...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Most of you, I'm sure, are familiar with pizza-chompin', skateboardin', cowabunga-sayin' dudes that were a sensation two decades ago. Well, these aren't those guys... these are the original Ninja Turtles, from the sel-published black and white comics by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird that begat a phenomenon. Honestly, I've never been a fan of the Ninja Turtles; I missed the original comics (and have never read them, in fact), and I was too old for the cartoon when they went mainstream (my younger brother was a big fan). So what lead me to make these guys? Simple: opportunity.

I'm always looking for designs that I can adapt to a decal, and one of my favorite sources is the popular papercraft toy Cubeecraft. These amazing templates make for just about the perfect Minimate decal, and I've used several over the years (you can find more Cubeecraft-based Minimate decals, including the cartoon Turtles- here). Well, one the best templates I found was this great Mirage Ninja Turtle exclusive to DeviantArt, and I couldn't resist. I chopped it up and used an old Ninja Turtles cover for the colors. Now it was just a matter of putting together their bodies.

Because each Mirage Ninja Turtle is identical save for their weapons, I was able to use body- from the Creature from the Black Lagoon- for each. I then needed four sets of Ghostbuster elbow pads and MAX Swat Officer thigh pads. Now it was just the weapons: sais for Raphael from Elektra; katanas for Leonardo from Deadpool; a bo staff for Donatello from movie Gambit; and the nunckaku for Michelangelo from... you'll never guess... the Marvel Universe Ronin action figure.

Overall, I've very pleased with the results (even if I now have a !@#$ ton of useless Black Lagoon parts...). While I wish the Ninja Turtles could be a little squatter, but I think the thigh pad helps with that. There are also decals on their backs, but I wasn't able to snap a decent picture of them (some would say I wasn't able to snap a decent picture of their fronts...). You don't have to take my word for it, though....

And, if you act now, you'll get at no extra charge this black and white version:

Minimate Customs: Doom Patrol

2011-11-13T23:10:00.000-05:00

I've got a couple big custom posts coming up, but I need to snap photos, so in the meantime enjoy...

The Doom Patrol

The Doom Patrol's biggest claim to fame is that they were the first characters in comics history to die on panel, going out with a literal bang as their series ended with Doom Patrol #121 in 1968. Created by writer Arnold Drake and artist Bruno Premiani, the Doom Patrol was originally something of an anomaly within the Silver Age DC Universe, as they were presented as freaks and outcasts among all DC's shining silver knights. Oddly enough, the DP premiered in the same month as that other famous comic book team of outcasts, the X-Men; moreover, during their Silver Age run, the Doom Patrol was probably the more successful comic. Anyway, I'm fond of them, so here they are. Let's take a look at each of these guys individually after the jump.

Robotman

Robotman's entire body can be found under the Thing here; one the things I like about the bulked-up 'mates we're seeing these days is that they provide nice, clean body parts for customizing. I touched the blue at the top of the leg thighs, and that was pretty much all the work I needed to do (and I still managed to screw that up somehow!). For his little chest box I used a Captain America shield harness; his shoulder pads come from... somewhere, but I just can't recall right now. If I remember the source (or someone reminds me), I'll edit that in.

Oh yes, and that decal; looks spiffy, doesn't it? Well, that's because it's not mine. It was provided to me by one of the pillars of the Minimate community, Boyd; you can see his own Doom Patrol here. Since Cliff Steele's face is not my work, I'm afraid I won't be providing the decal here, sorry.

Negative Man

If you look at Boyd's DP, you'll see that Neg Man's face is swaddled in bandages. I worked on this myself, at first working on a few decals, then even trying out medical tape to create a more realistic look. Ultimately, I decided that I just liked the look of a blank white head best. So there he is, with some purple paint and this decal to round him out:

Elasti-Girl

Saving the best (or at least my favorite) for last. Elasti-Girl came about during crazy-productive weekend I've mentioned previously. I'm really, really pleased with her, though I can't recall where a single piece of her comes from, save for the Wasp's skirt. So I'm afraid you're on your own as far as cracking that particular code, but I can at least get you started:

Penn State

2011-11-10T12:47:00.002-05:00

If you live outside of Pennsylvania, I don't think you can quite fathom how omnipresent Penn State University is in our lives. Pennsylvania is a funny place, its' two large cities living at opposite ends of the state, but in reality a world apart. Here, in the east, we think of New York, Washington DC, and the rest of the I-95 corridor as our neighbors and rivals, while in the west it's Ohio and West Virginia and the rest of the Rust Belt. The Phillies play in the NL East, the Pirates in the NL Central, and nobody seems to think that's a lost opportunity. If you told most people here that Pittsburgh was in a different time zone, I don't think any one would question that.

We come together in two ways: statewide elections and Penn State. Not just Penn State football either; you can't live in Pennsylvania and not have a connection to Penn State, even if you're not a graduate. My brother-in-law went to Penn State, as did my oldest friend, and my stepfather is a professor in the Penn State system. That's just the way it is. Penn State is, literally and figuratively, at the center of the state I've called home for at least 30 of my 37 years.

So it's not just the Penn State community that's shaken by the scandal that broke this weekend, it's Pennsylvania, period. I've been able to think about much else, and I've been to State College once in my life. It's been a whirlwind of a week; it's hard to believe that, just a few weeks ago, Joe Paterno was being celebrated for becoming college football's all-time winningest coach in what turned out to be his last game. Just think about that for a second. Here's a quote, from SI.com college football writer Stewart Mandel, from the story linked above: "In a sport filled with misguided, misbehaved or flat-out devious individuals, JoePa remains our moral compass, as he has for more than five decades." What a difference a week makes.

When the story first broke, late Saturday afternoon, my wife was out of town attending a wedding. When she got home that evening, and I told her about it, I speculated that this might be big enough to bring down Joe Paterno himself. Then, it seemed far-fetched, to think that the public career of the most revered figure in Pennsylvania this side of Ben Franklin could come to such a sudden, shocking, disturbing end. But it took less then a week for that prophecy to become fulfilled, and, as the details of the timeline of events covered in the grand jury probe into former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky's alleged pedophilia were fully digested, it's hard to say such drastic action isn't warrented.

I don't have a whole lot to say about the Sandusky case itself; what is there to say, really? I do want to say, though, that much of the criticism that has been leveled against then graduate assistant (and now Penn State assistant football coach) Mike McQueary, allegedly caught Sandusky in the act of of an unspeakable crime; many question his courage, and his manhood, and claim that they would have acted differently. And, quite honestly, I don't think that's true. Most of us, when faced with trauma, go into shock; we act, or fail to act, not in the way we would imagine. Most of us are not heroes, and we certainly don't walk into a room expecting to find a horrible crime and prepared to act. So, yes, while the heroic thing to do would have been to jump to action and drag Sandusky off that boy, it's not necessarily the human thing to do.

But McQueary was absolutely, positively right in going to his immediate superior, Joe Paterno. Moreover, Paterno was right in referring the matter to his superiors, even if you subscribe to the belief that, at Penn State, Joe Paterno had no superiors. There are mechanisms within institutions such as this to handle such things, and this is why. After that, well, there's no question that that mechanism failed to an astonishing degree. It's mind-boggling to think that the university could have conducted a "thorough internal investigation" without involving the campus police. And you have to wonder how anyone could speak to McQueary about the matter and come to the conclusion that this was just a case of "horsing around" gone to far. And, yes, when Paterno and especially McQueary learned that the university powers that be were content to let the matter lie, that's when they should have taken matters into their own hands and gone to the police independently. There's simply no excuse for agreeing to what is, essentially, a cover-up. Even if one removes morality from the situation for a moment (and one shouldn't), didn't anyone stop to think that the ramifications of inattention now would be that much worse down the line?

But no one's actions make sense in this case. It doesn't make much sense that, upon one of them catching Sandusky in a similar act in the showers in 1998, the custodial staff decided it was best to keep it to themselves. It doesn't make sense that, when Sandusky admitted on tape to taking a shower with a boy on tape to his mother, the Center County District Attorney at the time decided not to press charges. Even more shocking, it wasn't a decade after those accusations that the charity Sandusky founded and used as essentially a locator service for his victims even decided to cut ties with the man. How could so many people have failed so spectacularly for so long?

While most of us have instantly drawn a connection to the massive coverup of similar abuses within the Catholic Church, I'm also uncomfortably reminded of Chris Benoit, the WWE wrestler who murdered his wife and son before taking his own life. There aren't a lot of parallels, really; Sandusky's crimes were carried out over a period of years, and, if not outright covered up, were at the very least allowed to continue unabated. Benoit, meanwhile, simply snapped without much warning. But the shock and the horror are the same, and the sense that nothing the man touched will be the same from that day forward. Because Benoit was not just a wrestler, but a champion and mentor to his peers. Chris Jericho still calls him the most important person in his career; watching Jericho tell his story on his recent WWE dvd, there's a clear hole in the narrative where Benoit belongs. But the WWE, as best they can, have tried to erase Benoit from their narrative, as is their right.

Penn State won't be so lucky. Because football is real, and wrestling is not, it's not so easy to dismiss the contributions of a monster. I thought that this piece from State College native Michael Weintrab really encapsulated the devastation among the Penn State community, particularly this passage regarding the 1986 national title game, in which Sandusky's defense was the key component in upsetting Miami: "I have the original video recording of it in my living room, and I have thought several times over the past couple of days about taking a hammer to it."

This is, unquestionably, the worst scandal in American academic history, and will forever taint the school, much the way Kent State University will forever be associated with the events of May 4, 1970. I don't really know how the university recovers; forget athletes, I can't imagine why any prospective student would want to go to State College now. As for the athletic program, more then just a clean sweep of personnel is needed; they need to blow up the damn buildings. Can you imagine having to use one of those showers now?

I'm not sure that I agree with the decision to remove Paterno now, rather then at the end of the year. While I don't absolve him of blame, and I understand the need to move on now, doing so shifts the narrative from being about Jerry Sandusky, his crimes, and his victims, to Joe Paterno. Yes, if Paterno remained with the team, the rest of the football season would be a circus. But it will be a circus regardless. I find it interesting that the attorney for the alleged victims criticized the Board of Trustee's actions, saying in essence "they don't want to be held responsible for ending Joe Paterno's career".

Of course, as I'm sure Paterno would readily admit, only he is responsible for his career ending in this manner. It's a shame that the legacy and reputation of a man that has accomplished so much, and for so many, should end so sordidly. But, on the other hand, as victims go, it's pretty far down the list.

EDIT: I don't want to undercut the seriousness of this whole thing with something trivial, but I just can't resist: Ashton Kutcher, somehow learning that Joe Paterno has been fired but oblivious to the circumstances, proves himself to be, definitively, the universe's biggest idiot.

ANOTHER EDIT: Sara Ganim, a crime reporter for the Patriot-News, had provided amazing coverage of the story; today, she provides a timeline of the entire case, and all the spots along the way where Sandusky was somehow able to avoid scrutiny and continue to have access to young boys. An astonishing amount of failures by people that are trained to recognize these signs and how to act. And yet, for most people, this case has somehow become a referendum on Joe Paterno.

Minimate Customs: Bring on the Bad Guys

2011-10-18T23:35:00.000-04:00

Fallin' behind on the ol' Minimate custom showcase again, so it's time to start blowing through them with some big theme posts. Today will feature some of the bad guys of the Marvel Universe, an area that our friends at Art Asylum have left sadly underexplored. A shame, because the House of Ideas has turned out some great, colorful villains. It's up to us, I guess, to fill in the holes.
Constrictor

I'm not ashamed to say that I love the Constrictor; he may be my favorite villain in the entire Marvel Universe. I first saw him not in a comic, but as an action figure from the third wave of Secret Wars figures in the early '80s, a wave that never saw domestic release. Constrictor was a bizarre choice for the toy line, in that he was a very low-profile villain, and (as with wave-mates Electro and Iceman) wasn't even a part of the Secret Wars comic from which the toy line shared its' name. But, I guess, you can't blame them. Constrictor's just a cool lookin' dude.

As I began to fool around more and more with decals, it just made sense to make my own Constrictor (even though I did finally get my Constrictor figure as part of the Marvel Universe 3 3/4" action figure line). I used a design sheet Art Asylum had release for the Hydra Agent (which I can't seem to find now, or I'd link to it) for his mask, then added lots of little lines to one of the Minimate Factory's many templates. While time consuming, creating the decals was actually relatively easy.

Much tougher was figuring out how to create his arm tentacles, and how to attach them. During the time between my creation of the decals and my printing them, DST was kind enough to release Omega Red; this solved the tentacles question nicely. Now, all that was left was putting them on his wrists. After trying out various unsatisfying possibilities, I discovered that the perfect solution had been sitting in front of me the whole time, on the wrists of a Halo Minimate I'd bought as a lark. A little orange and blue paint, some superglue, and one of my favorite characters had turned into one of my favorite customs.

And here's those decals, for all the other members of the Constrictor fan club out there:

Blacklash

Another favorite character, this guy just kind of came together one day. His chest comes from Namor, with the gold belt around his waste scraped off (it looks better in person), and his mask has been used several times, most notably with the Silver Age X-Men. I clipped off the pony tail from Loki, painted it green and glued it to the top of his mask, where it has fallen off several times. His cape and feet come from several different Magneto Minimates (both Magneto and Blacklash apparently like to mix up their purples), and his gloves were donated by a Sentinel. Finally, rounding out the ensemble is a purse borrowed from the Marvel Universe's maven of fashion, the Green Goblin, painted the appropriate shade of purple. Blacklash is unfortunately missing his, well, lash, as I've yet to find one I like. They can't all be Constrictors!

Dread Dormamu

I've had an amazing streak of never having a custom replaced by an official version that's about to be broken by, of all people, this guy. At least DST is going for his contemporary armored look and not the classic Ditko version I've attempted to capture here. Just a simple quick custom, based mostly on the visual similarities between Dr. Strange's nemesis and the Human Torch: head, hands, feet, and flame accessories from the Torch; body from a Skrull; rounded out by a belt from Ocean Master.

Mad Thinker

Another quick custom, using the otherwise uninspiring body of the first Red Skull Minimate. His head can be found under the Swordsman's mask, and his hair comes from BSG's Sharon Valerii. A horrible hairpiece on her, I think it works quite nicely here. I quite like him, because he uses some 'mate I wasn't all that happy with to make something pretty good. The sum outweighing the parts and all that.

The Hood

Someone else came up with the idea of painting Cloak's... er... cloak red to make current Marvel crime boss Parker Robbins' alter ego; I just ~~stole~~ borrowed the idea. He's literally just Cloaks cape and hood on this video game guy's body. The end. Fun fact: the Hood is actually possessed by the Dread Dormammu, as seen above.

Radioactive Man

This guy barely counts as a custom, as half his body comes from the official Radioactive Man release. But there's paint here, so more work went into him than about 75% of my other customs, so go figure. I had to buy a translucent green blank for his legs, which took ages to find, then saw them everywhere once DST released a new Gamma Hulk. Sigh. His boots come from Guy Gardner, and his skirt's from Elektra or Deathstrike or one of the hundred other women that wear these little skirts, painted green. You here that, Radioactive Man? You're wearing a women's skirt! Anyway, I've since acquired green paint that closer matches the rest of his outfit, so maybe someday I'll touch him up. But probably not.

Black Tom Cassidy

Can you believe this is the first X-Men related custom I've ever made? Really not a fan. Anyway, Black Tom came about basically because I came across a decal of him made for a Lego that was easy to adapt. His head comes from an Iron Man/Tony Stark figure (you're welcome to dig through the endless Iron Men to find the exact one), and his collar's from Star Sapphire. Hated to paint over it, but what can you do? Accuracy's a must. He's got 90's Storm's irritating puffy sleeves, and, one day, he'll have the walking stick I spotted coming with the upcoming Kirby Thor. Let's end this farce with what you're really here for, the decal.

Good Grief

2011-10-08T09:47:00.000-04:00

I suppose there's two positive things to take out of last night's Phillies/ Cardinals game:

1. Ryan Howard didn't become the second player in history to end two straight postseasons for his team with a strikeout (Alex Rodriguez became the first Thursday night).

2. This Phillies grounded out to short with such clockwork precision, inning after inning, that the game moved along at a rapid pace, meaning we all got our misery out of the way at a relatively decent hour.

And that's about it, as the Phillies, the best team in baseball all summer, laid down and died as meekly as a mouse. If you only watched the first two batters of the game, you literally saw all you needed to see, as the the game's only run was scored in the first five minutes. Roy Halliday settled into the game rather nicely after that, getting out of a jam to hold the Cardinals to only that one run, and really only allowing one other scoring threat, in the top of the eighth, when the Cardinals loaded the bases with one out. But Chris Carpenter totally mastered the Phillies' "hitters", with shocking ease. The Phillies managed one threat all night, when they put men on first and third with two outs. Raul Ibanez, hopefully playing his last game as a Phillie, seemingly changed the narrative with a deep drive to right field, but it died on the warning track. Chase Utley would duplicate Ibanez' near-heroics with a deep drive off the first pitch in the ninth, and Carpenter cruised to a humiliating shutout.

I think we all know by now that the only reason the Cardinals are even in the playoffs is because the Phillies swept the collapsing Atlanta Braves to end the season. So, in a way, the Phillies scripted their own doom by opening a door for a much more powerful team. But that shouldn't have mattered, as this Phillies team- built around postseason baseball's most precious commodity, starting pitching- was supposed to roll over anyone in their way. But this series exposed fully the Phillies' aging lineup, and so-so starts by Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt were too much to overcome.

What to make of Ryan Howard? In the first two games of the series, when he collected his only two hits, he looked locked in, ready to carry the team on his back. And then... I don't even know. Just an utter, baffling collapse. Howard's playoff struggles have always come about because of his vulnerability to lefthanded pitching, but in these last three games the Cardinals didn't even need to bother forcing lefty/lefty matchups. I've long thought Howard was underappreciated, with his great crime being essentially not being Albert Pujols, but what is there to say after this?

Going into the season, I had a bad feeling about this Phillies team, overreliant as it was on an aging core. But the Phillies cruised to 100 wins, and the World Series was theirs to loose. Well, it's lost. It should be noted that, in the last four seasons, the Phillies have gone from winning the World Series to loosing in their return, to loosing in the NLCS, to losing now in the Division Round. If this pattern of attrition continues, well, we won't be seeing them in the playoffs at all next year.

Okay, Andy Reid, Michael Vick: the ball's in your court. We need a pick-me-up. Man, we're really screwed, aren't we?

So, How Exactly Does One Pronounce "Nnamdi Asomugha"?

2011-07-29T23:29:00.000-04:00

Okay, so twice today I've gone to SI.com and learned that a Philly team made a big move. Just a few minutes ago, I saw that the Phillies had pulled off the long-discussed trade for Houston Astros outfielder Hunter Pence, which seems like a fine move. They gave up some good prospects, but ones far down in their system. This is a move the Phillies needed to do, because adding a right handed bat to their lineup may be the key to this being a truly special year. We all know that this post season (in the NL at least) will come down to pitching, and the Phillies have an edge over just about everybody, but the Phillies stark vulnerability to lefthanded pitching is too big an Achilles heel to carry. Pence isn't a huge run producer, but he's a multi-tooled young player who'll be a big upgrade to the corner outfield spots. Even better, they didn't do something foolish like trade young Dominick Brown, still considered by most a top prospect. I entered this season with some reservations about Brown, but that was as a replacement for Jayson Werth. As a replacement for Raul Ibanez, I've got no problem with the kid.

But, anyway, that's not even the really big news around these parts. Nope, the really big news is that the Eagles, from seemingly out of nowhere, swooped in (yeah, I'm making that pun too ) and stole the best free agent in football, cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha. The best part? They snatched him out from under the Cowboys! Ha!

Anyone that's followed the Eagles for awhile shouldn't be all that surprised. Yes, they just acquired a corner, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, in the trade for onetime starter Kevin Kolb (what was my prediction for him last year?... oh yes. *cough*). But Andy Reid has always valued corners: he signed Troy Vincent when he had Bobby Taylor and Al Harris (both pretty good corners); he drafted Sheldon Brown and Lito Sheppard (in the same year!) when Vincent and Taylor were still one of the best corner tandems in the league; and he signed Asante Samuel when Brown and Sheppard were still making Pro Bowls. Last year, when the Eagles had basically one good corner (Samuel) was the aberration. Because the Eagles play such an attacking style of defense, they rely on their corners even more then most teams, and last year, they sucked.

They don't now. Suddenly, the team's biggest flaw has become (perhaps) its' strength. The pass defense was the big flaw in last year's team; it's not too big a stretch to say that the secondary kept the Eagles from the Super Bowl. Well, that's how we roll in Philly these days. We want something, we go get it. Well, except for the Sixers. Ignore them.

Right now, this feels a lot like the last time the Eagles went out and got the best player available at their biggest position of need. You might remember him? Wore number 81? Well, he was kind of quiet. Anyway, that worked out pretty well... for awhile. If memory serves, that was also the year they signed Jevon Kearse, which didn't really work out all that well, but was still a move that signaled the Eagles were in it to win it. When does the season start again?

Man, what a day. The only thing that could make it better would be if they brought back Brian Dawkins....

Minimate Customs: Miracleman and Miraclewoman

2011-06-29T23:58:00.000-04:00

Fallen a bit behind in my big custom showcase, but here's two more....
Miracleman

Now here's a guy with an interesting history. Miracleman (aka Marvelman) began life as a stand in for the original Captain Marvel (aka Shazam) when the World's Mightiest Mortal's publisher, Fawcett, decided to pull the plug on their comics line (longstanding legal action by DC Comics as to the similarities of Captain Marvel and Superman didn't hurt). This left the British publisher of CM's adventures in a bit of a lurch, as the strip was still quite popular over there, but suddenly they had no new material to print, or even the rights to the old material (due to the DC settlement). So they thought fast and had artist Mick Angelo whip up a thinly-veiled replacement named Marvelman. Though the strip really wasn't very good (sorry, but it's true), Marvelman proved quite popular, and was fondly remembered as the first British super hero into the '80s.

That's when a publisher named Dez Skinn decided to revive the character for his new anthology Warrior, and he hired Alan Moore to give it a go. You might have heard of him. Anyway, the rest of the story is faaaaaaaaaaaar to involved for me to get into, but needless to say Moore did three brilliant volumes of the renamed Miracleman before turning him over to Neil Gaiman (of whom you might also be familiar), who got one full volume and began a second before American publisher Eclipse imploded. And then began the astonishing battle over Miracleman's rights between Gaiman and Todd McFarlane, which actually did end when it was somehow realized that, oops, Skinn never had the rights to the character in the first place, Mick Angelo still did. And now he's owned by Marvel, which is the one place that would go back to the Marvelman name. Of course. But he'll always be Miracleman to me.

Look, just read the Wikipedia page.

Anyway, I do own all the Miracleman comics, and yes, they're pretty great. Not Moore's best, or Gaiman's, but pretty great. So making a Miracleman Minimate was of course a priority for me, and here he is. Body's blue, the hands are red, the accents are yellow. His hair's from a C3 Superman, and his head's from Ultimate Captain America. The decal was surprisingly easy to put together, as I found the Miracleman logo here, and then used this great Mark Buckingham cover for the neck part. Easily my favorite decal, and it was killing me to have to wait to print it. But you, my friends, are under no such restrictions:

Miraclewoman

She was put together almost as a lark; I'd already prepped the logo to put on Luke's male chest template, so it was a snap to shrink it and put it around the midriff of a female template. Of course, that should be a "MW" instead of a "MM", but at that size, you can barely see it anyway. I put her together with similar speed, grabbing a head (I think from Caprica Six) and hair (which came in the Captain America Through the Ages box set) from my parts bin. I painted a First Appearance Dr. Doom collar, stuck the decal on a blue chest, and there you go. Bob's yer uncle, or something. Anyway, here's here decal:

And a shot of the happy couple:

Not registered at Target

I realize now I really wish I'd made the rest of the Miraclefamily. Ah well.

Minimate Customs: the Secret Six

2011-06-24T20:07:00.001-04:00

Continuing to survey the results of my weekend of nerd-shame.

The Secret Six

These guys have been floating around the fringes of the DC Universe for a few years now. They first appeared in the mini-series Villains United, revolving around the battle between a recently formed super villain army, and six holdouts who said "thanks, but no thanks". The mini was quite well received, leading to a second under the title Secret Six, and then a regular series of the same name. The book takes its' name from a short-lived Silver Age DC title; in the original, the six are a group of people "helped" out of a jam by the mysterious Mockingbird. In exchange, each member of the six agrees to serve as a spy for Mockingbird, with the knowledge that backing out of the agreement will lead to Mockingbird's work being undone. The twist was that one of the six was lying, and was secretly Mockingbird. Good stuff. Anyway, the name made sense in the original series, when the six had a secret benefactor (referred to as Mockingbird) in their feud with the Society. Now... well, I guess it's a good name.

Anyway, here's what these guys look like:

They've gone through some roster changes, but the guys we're dealing with are all here, and that's a nice picture, so we'll stick with that. Obviously, there's more characters here then I've made, but these are the ones I like, so these are the ones you're getting.

Deadshot

Deadshot's history is pretty interesting; originally a one-off Batman villain in 1950, Deadshot was revamped during the famed Steve Englehart/ Marshall Rogers run on Detective Comics in the late '70s. As explained here, though, that issue of Detective only came about because of some scheduling manuvering. Deadshot appeared off and on in the Batman books after that, but became a fan favorite when he was prominently featured in the villains-as-reluctant-government-agents comic Suicide Squad in the mid-80s.

And his costume is undeniably great. I really wanted to do Deadshot, but I didn't have much idea how for the longest time. There's a nice decal, by the talented Tenime, available at the Minimate Factory, but it was in more of the style of his "Justice League Unlimited" look, and I wanted more of his comics look. So, using Tenime's decal as a starting point, I whipped up my own, using a decal Luke had created for Union Jack to get those nice shadows on his mask. As usual, here's the decal:

Even with the decals finished, there was still the problem of his gun arms. I decided to keep things simple, and ended up cutting the handles off Blackhawk's guns and gluing them to Menace's wrist gauntlets. While the results aren't perfect (and they pale in comparison to Boyd's efforts from a few years back), I now at least have a serviceable Deadshot to menace my collection.

Oh, I should also mention that the Deadshot photos were taken without a flash, because the light kept reflecting back of the decals and obscuring the details. So if they look weird, that's why.

Catman

Also a minor Batman villain, Catman had languished in obscurity for several years, finally reaching his nadir when he was turned into a fat, pathetic loser by a guy who knows a little bit about the subject, Kevin Smith. Secret Six writer Gail Simone decide to reestablish him as a badass, and he's probably been the breakout character from the series. I'd had him doing him in the back of my mind, but it wasn't until I saw another customizer (can't remember who, sorry!) use Wildcat's mask that I decided to put him together. Other then the mask, and this Captain America belt, he's basically just brown paint and yellow body parts. And this decal:

Scandal Savage

Unlike our previous two, Scandal here has no history outside of the Secret Six, though, as the daughter of DC's immortal caveman, Vandal Savage, she's well connected. I really like the character, and really wanted to make her; however, my attempts to create a decal with her costume's funky armor patterns proved fruitless. In the end, as I so often do, I decided that having Scandal was more important then having a perfect Scandal, so X-23's torso (with a little black sharpie work) proved a nice fit. Her hands are also from X-23, with gloves from this Wolverine, painted silver, replicating her forearm armor thingies. Her collar's from Star Sapphire (with a little black paint); hair's from Goliath; legs are from punk Storm; and her head's actually this terrible one, made useful with a little black paint.

Minimate Customs: Blue Beetle

2011-06-23T14:42:00.001-04:00

I've been incredibly prolific, for better or for worse, with this dorky little Minimate thing I do of late. No lie, I've finished something like three dozen projects that were in various states production over the last few weeks. Two factors combined to explain this surge: one, I finally printed off a new, large group of decals; and two, my family was out of town for a few days. So my dining room turned into my own little Minimate factory over the weekend, with me (in some cases) just putting the finishing touches on a longstanding project, or (in others) built someone from start to finish. Other men, when their wives and children leave them alone, hit the strip clubs. I make Minimates. Judge accordingly.

So, anyway, I'm (understandably, I think) eager to show some of these guys off. I'm very, very pleased with many of these, and some (like the guy you'll see today) I'd categorize as among my best work. So you're going to see a lot of Minimate posts in the coming days. In some cases, I'll do themes; others, those which I think are particularly strong, will be on there own. Like this guy.

Blue Beetle

Jamie Reyes was introduced a few years ago as the new Blue Beetle, replacing our beloved, deceased Ted Kord during the last time DC Comics attempted to get your attention by rebooting their univese (as opposed to the disaster impending in September). While the rationale and mechanics for Ted's death are... arguable, I'd say what isn't arguable is that Jamie Reyes is one of the best things to come out of that last round of reboots/retools. He had his own book for a few years, which was a nice take on the traditional Spider-Man style "teenager gets super powers" deal.

And I love his costume, as designed by Cully Hamner. I think it's one of the best, most distictive designs we've seen in years. We've been fortunate to receive several plastic versions of Jamie since he's debuted- and even this, based on his slightly less detailed "Brave and the Bold" look- but, of course, no Minimate. Moreover, because of the unique details of the costume, I thought he was pretty much out of league.

However, while trolling through the 'net one day, I came across a Jamie decal, designed for Legos, that I thought was very impressive. You can find it here; it's by a guy named Josh, and I give him a lot of props for doing such good work. I adapted his decal to fit a Minimate's body specs, and suddenly Jamie didn't seem quite so far away. For those of you playing at home, here's the decal:

Please use it for good, not for evil. His body was (mostly) provided by X-Force Archangel, which had some nice silver-on-black details, which fit pretty well. The rest of his body's just spare black parts, with Gambit's boots (painted blue) and some claw hands from somewhere to replicate Jamie's funky fingers. I rounded him out with some shoulder pads from a Halo Minimate, which I painted blue, and ended up slicing up and gluing onto his arms.

And then there's his scarab backpack, which you can see pretty clearly in the second photo up there. This piece comes from the Brave and the Bold Action League figure (which came along with another figure I'd bought for another, as yet unseen, project); it doesn't quite capture the look of the comic, but it gets the job done. I sliced the pack off the back of the Action League figure (which was surprisingly easy), then sanded it down so that it was flat and smooth enough to glue on a Minimate back. When I tried it out, however, I didn't like the way the scarab sat on his back, so I ended up chopping the pegs off the little piece that holds on Archangel's wings and gluing it to that. Much better. And, here in the last photo, I gave Jamie some confiscated Hydra guns to replicate some of the weapons the scarab creates for him.

In short, this is a guy that I really wanted to do, that I didn't think I could ever pull off, but turned out even better then I expected. He's going to be hard to top as my favorite custom.

Finally, a Dallas Sports Victory I Can Get Behind

2011-06-13T09:55:00.001-04:00

I watched exactly one half of an NBA game this year: LeBron James' much hyped return to Cleveland. And, since it was on opposite either an Eagles game or Phillies playoff game(can't remember which), I didn't even watch all that much of it. Still, that's more then I'd watched over the last several years, certainly during the regular season. Basketball, particularly the NBA version, just doesn't do it for me as a spectator sport. I find the game tedious, the league and its' players unlikable. Even during the Jordan Era, when I cut my teeth as a sports fan, I was never particularly swayed by the charms of the NBA.

So it's curious that I found myself invested in these just-concluded NBA playoffs without actually watching any of the games (until last night, when I caught the fourth quarter of Game 6 of the finals). Part of that interest is because the NBA had, this year, achieved a weird equilibrium between being wide open and dominated by a handful of teams. A distinctive class system emerged: you had the elite teams, six or eight stacked superteams that all looked like they could go all the way; the middle class, the decent teams with dreams of filling out the playoff field and not much else; and the rest. Never, in my lifetime at least, have you seen a sport quite so top-heavy as the NBA this year.

Of course, interest in the NBA was driven largely this year by the emergence of a new villain: the Miami Heat. And I, certainly, was just as interested in anybody in watching them fall. What's curious about the Heat (and, specifically, LeBron James) is that they don't relish the role of villain the way others have. Most teams, and players, that have engendered such negative feelings have relished their black hat, but the Heat haven't quite gotten things figured out. LeBron might not have figured out how to be Michael Jordan, but he sure as hell doesn't have a clue how to be Dennis Rodman.

What's really interesting about these finals is the team cast in the role of National Last Hope: the Dallas Mavericks. I think we'd all relegated them into the category of perpetual bridesmaid, that weird subclass of elite teams that, year after year, somehow come up short. In the NBA, you've always had an abnormally large group. I think we all just assumed that Dirk Nowitski's Mavs would join Reggie Miller's Pacers, Pat Ewing's Knicks, Karl Malone's Jazz, Chris Webber's Kings, and Allen Iverson's Sixers as fondly remembered, but ultimately fruitless, teams of unfulfilled greatness. Suddenly, there's hope for every team that's been so close, but yet so far. Yes, in the Mavericks' victory I somehow find an omen for the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles.

People want to look at the Mavericks defeat of the Heat as a triumph of good versus evil; I don't, if only because, in my experience, evil wins more often then not in the NBA (exibit A: how many rings does Kobe Bryant have?). But that's certainly a compelling storyline, so I guess we'll stick with that.

Minimate Customs: Making Mine Marvel

2011-06-02T14:03:00.001-04:00

As I continue to clear out my Minimate custom archives with "theme" posts, let's turn away from the DCU for the moment and take a look at the Distinguished Competition. As I've previously stated, I don't make many Marvel customs. But I've been making more recently, probably because I've got a lot more opportunity, since I'm printing decals, and I've come to the Hypno- Hustler, so I'd better take matters into my own hands (note: I'm not actually making the Hypno-Hustler... but I bet this guy will). So what follows is a quick tour of the fringes of the Marvel Universe, where I've always preferred to hang.

The Black Knight

Admittedly, the Black Knight isn't quite finished, as I have a decal waiting to be printed to top him off (long story). But I couldn't resist showing him off, because I'm rather proud of him. His parts are basically a combination of Yellowjacket and Modern Thor, with Movie Thor's cape (painted blue) thrown in. I've held off on making him for a long time, because he seems like a natural to get his own release, but once I'd cracked the formula, there was no stopping me.

His sword, the fabled Ebony Blade, comes from another Movie Thor release, the Asgardian guard, and is just perfect... except that it doesn't fit in his gloved hand. I've even tried widening it with pliers; no luck. Eventually, I'll probably switch these gloves out for the snazzy new ones found on the newer Captain Americas. And, eventually, he'll be completed with this:

Once he's fully done, I'll update him here.
EDIT: And here he is!

Shang-Chi

This one actually goes back a ways, though it wasn't until Agent Zero's head came out that I was able to complete him. His hair, chest, and skirt come from Street Fighter Ryu, with some serious red and yellow sharpie action. I also sharpied his hair, though I'd recommend to anyone wishing to duplicate this formula to try and acquire an Evil Ryu. I took a few liberties with his outfit, not adding yellow at his sleeves, and putting him in little black slippers, but... whatever. The nunchaka come from a Marvel Universe Ronin figure, by the way.

Captain Marvel

Did you know that every few years Marvel has to release a Captain Marvel title to maintain their trademark, lest DC swoop in and steal the name back for the original Captain Marvel, a.k.a Shazam? That's why they keep putting out a new title with the guy every few years, even though he's never been all that popular. Well, I always liked him. This guy is the son of Marvel's first Captain Marvel, and is just about the easiest custom you can make. His arms, chest, crotch, and feet all come from his dad, with the matching blue legs coming, in this case, from... hmmm... you know, I'm not quite sure. How embarrassing. But his head's from Dr Fate, and his head's from Colossus, with a blue sharpie giving him a funky outer space look.

Cyclops

Not so much a custom per se as a modification. I was never very happy with the official Cyclops, what with his painted boots and gloves. So I stuck his mask, arms, legs, and crotch on the hideous AoA Cyclop's torso (you know... that's probably where Captain Marvel's legs come from), grabbed some yellow boots and gloves, and voila, a Cyclops I can live with.

Night Nurse

If you're talking about obscure comic book characters, it's pretty hard to top Night Nurse. As part of a greater push to create more titles for women, Night Nurse was the star of her own short-lived (and, inexplicable valuable) series in the '70s. Her body's entirely from Kobol Six, and her hair's from Silken Floss. And that's it. That's the formula. Night Nurse!

Ka-Zar

Another early, easy custom. I know there's no shortage of Ka-Zar quick customs out there, but I quite like mine. He's got an Eddie Brock head with a Six hairpiece (I've probably used Six 'mates for customs more then anyone else), with Gollum's loin cloth and Nick Fury's knife. Here he is with his award-winning wife, Shanna the She-Devil:

If anyone has any suggestions for Zabu in this scale, I'd appreciate it.

Dominic Fortune

Saving the best (and newest) for last. Dominic Fortune is a character created by the great Howard Chaykin, and is the Marvel Universe's version of Chaykin's typical rouge anti-hero. He recently appeared in Marvel's Hawkeye and Mockingbird book, and though I like Dominic Fortune and liked Hawkeye and Mockingbird, I didn't like Dominic Fortune in Hawkeye and Mockingbird. Go figure.

His distinctive tunic comes from the new Movie Cap Bucky figure (which served as the starting point for this custom), as does his head. Hair comes from one of the many Iron Man/Tony Stark figures out there. Rest of the parts are just from my parts box, with the boots and gloves painted brown. This is probably my best paint job... so far.

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

2011-05-16T11:13:00.001-04:00

Wow, hard to believe it's been a whole month since my last post here, huh? Time sure does fly. In that flying time I've been chewing around at least a half-dozen posts on various topics sure to amuse, delight and maybe, just maybe, make you better understand this condition we call human. Of course, you're never going to get to read them, since the world's ending Saturday. I might be able to squeeze in a Minimate post before then, but that's about it.

Who's picking him up at the airport?

Oh, you hadn't heard? Yep, the Rapture's coming May 21st. That's Saturday. The Big R. Kind of makes the NFL lockout seem like not a big deal, huh?

In retrospect, I'm glad that I never did start that "Top 5 Albums of My Lifetime Year by Year" project I was contemplating... I doubt I would have made it out of the '70s, which was a pretty dreadful time for music. The good news, of course, is that "Parks and Recreation" is airing the last two episodes of the season this Thursday, so we won't miss anything. Of course, the bad news is that "Game of Thrones" is only halfway done. Heaven must have HBO, right? That would make sense. As a matter of fact, I bet all you Left Behinders will be stuck with MTV, since we all know that no one that's ever been associated with MTV has any chance come Judgement Day.

I imagine that Heaven must be pretty crazy this week, trying to decide who stays and goes; it's probably something like Santa's workshop the week before Christmas. Now, sure, there are plenty of groups that you can eliminate right away- such as Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Gays, Communists, Democrats, and the French- but that still leaves several billion people to sort out. That's a lot, even for God. He must be burning the candle at both ends this week. Well, he created the world in six days, so I guess this isn't that big a deal. I do hope he remembers to set his TiVo to tape both "Parks and Rec" episodes, though.

We know that the world is ending because the founder of Family Radio, Harold Camping, has done an exhaustive study of the Bible, and it says May 21, 2011, like, everywhere. Now, a lot of people want to make a big deal out of the fact that Camping's original prediction for the Rapture was September 4, 1994, which was a decidedly Rapture-free day. Hey, that's okay with me, since my birthday was three weeks later. However, as he explained to New York Magazine, Camping has a very good reason for getting the original date wrong: he hadn't finished reading the Bible. Now, the cynics among you might be saying "how the fuck could he predict the world would end in 1994 if he hadn't finished developing the equation of prediction? Isn't that like NASA firing a rocket into space without calculating the trajectory?" Well, I'd respond to the cynics among you that it doesn't really matter what you think, because you're not going anywhere anyway. So fuck off.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good about my chances. My wife's a priest. My daughter's adorable. And my mom's sure to put in a good word, and, if you've met my mom, you know how persuasive she can be. And, okay, sure, I have been illegally downloading "Game of Thrones" these past few weeks (in fact... better get to that), and sure, I may have a few skeletons in the closet, and yeah, maybe I do blaspheme on a shockingly regular basis, but I also make a mean vegetarian enchilada, so I figure it all balances out. Good luck to the rest of you! Sleep tight, ya morons!

Minimate Customs: Around the DC Universe

2011-04-14T13:46:00.000-04:00

Yeah, another post today, since I'm still trying to get caught up on my backlog of customs. Plus, I just made someone yesterday that I'm very happy with, and I didn't want to wait to show him off. So here's a smattering of some of my favorite customs from various DC Universe characters.

The Warlord

And here's the guy I made yesterday. One of the things I find most rewarding as a customizer is when you can have an idea and turn it around into a finished product in a day, which is what happened with this guy. I'm not even sure where the inspiration for him came from... oh wait, yes I am: I saw the new Justice League Unlimited Warlord figure yesterday. Though I've long since stopped collecting those figures, I appreciate the astonishing breadth of character in the line, and often find myself inspired by the characters they include. I don't think I'd ever considered making the Warlord before, but seeing him on the shelf suddenly made me want a Warlord Minimate.

It also made me realize that the new helmet included with Movie Thor makes for a perfect Warlord helmet... I mean, it's almost exact. You couldn't sculpt a better helmet. Soon after, while going over various possible heads for him in my mind, I realized that the head under Dr. Fate's helmet would be ideal... for the first time, I was glad they'd made this version of Doc.

For the rest of him, he's got the hairy chest from under the Titanium Man's armor... bracelets and boots from First Appearance Dr. Doom... and Lady Loki's belt/sash thing for his loincloth, painted white with some little black dots. Okay, so he's missing the chain across his chest, and the little skull thing on his shoulder... I'm still working on that. And I threw in some weapons; not pictured is the golden shield from the Atlantean Soldier which rounds him out.

The Creeper

Quite a while ago I bought a loose, incomplete C3 Joker (there are always a ton of them from overseas available on Ebay) with the idea of using it to modify the DCD Joker; I've never liked the face or the hat/trenchcoat combo on him. Shortly after he arrived, though, it occurred to me that the hair and face would make for a really nice Creeper. Since the Joker head was white, it was a simple matter of using a yellow sharpie to match the Creepers ghastly complexion.

Not so simple was figuring out how to replicate the big furry cape thing Steve Ditko gave him... I don't even know what to call that thing. But the Human Torch's shoulder flames seem to work nicely as a stand-in. His chest comes from Yellowjacket, and his arms from an AIM soldier; here I used a trick I like when a guy has multi-colored gloves, which is to use the painted bands on the arms for one color, and the hands for another. His crotch is from Polaris, and his legs are from the original Iron Man Minimate; it killed me a bit to break that one up, but the yellow/red leg combo isn't that common on Minimates, and that guy's obsolete anyway.

The Ray

This guy was entirely ~~stolen from~~ inspired by a custom done by the very talented Lastmaximal; I like his work a lot because we both seem to be working at the same purpose, namely rounding out the DCU. I also think he's very clever in his reuse of parts, as on display here. I'd long ago tagged the Kree Soldier's helmet as the key to make the Ray, but I'd always planned on using it for the Golden Age Ray, whose costume is much simpler. I'd never really thought about making the modern version (though I like his outfit much better) until I saw Lastmaximal's custom here, and wanted one for myself. What's ingenious about this formula is that it uses the odd Ghost Rider half-jacket, which I always thought useless, but works perfectly.

This custom was also the first I made using the new paint set Hillary bought me as part of my Minimate customizing birthday kit (Yep, dorkiest couple ever! You're a lucky little girl, Delia!). The results are... okay. Not as nice as Lastmaximal's, but I'm satisfied. Here's a side view, so you can see more of the details:

Vigilante

More painting... er... goodness? I dunno. Painting details will never bee my forte, but I'm not unhappy with how he turned out. He's got a black Spider-Man slipon mask with Cyclops goggles glued on; I think those !@#$ goggles were the inspiration for this project. Belt and holster come from Deathstroke, painted yellow. And here's another pic I snapped, where he's holding his rifle:

Kamandi and Omac

Last ones for the day... thank God... these guys are both Jack Kirby creations, and Grandson and Grandfather, respectively, so it makes sense to show these guys off together. Let's take Omac first:

This guy was again inspired by another action figure, this time the DC Universe Classics Omac. He's sporting Dark Wolverine's mohawk, on top of the head from the Ultimate SHIELD Soldier; you can't quite tell from the picture, but that head has a crew cut painted on, which matches Omac's funky haircut pretty well. Chest and arms come from Cyclops, crotch from this Batman (with a little orange sharpie added), legs from the Leader. Eventually I added a decal, when I found the Omac logo as buddy icon on DC's home page. And since I like to share these things:

Now let's turn to Kamandi:

Kamandi here is actually one of the first customs I ever did; I've a real affinity for the character (I'd go so far as to say he's my favorite Kirby creation), and I really wanted to capture the King's spirit (no, not literally) when I made him. That actually wasn't all that hard, because Art Asylum's original Fantastic Four Minimates were done in a classic Kirby style, meaning I had this great Invisible Girl hairpiece for Kamandi. My original plan was to pair that with Mister Fantastic's face, but that fell through when head and hair proved incompatible. But, in browsing through my 'mates for a replacement, I noticed that this BSG Apollo has a real cartoony face-- one that looks like it could be drawn by Kirby.

For his chest, I used one that came with this Jack Bauer-- which looked terrible for Jack but great for Kamandi. For the longest time, his legs were from a Hunt Minimate, with the tan shorts sharpied blue; I was never particularly satisfied with this. But then Jubilee came out, and her lower half was exactly what Kamandi was missing. To any Jubilee fans out there, let me just say: she's been very useful custom fodder. :)

Anyway, I'm really proud of this custom, because I think it shows that you can perfectly capture a character, without modifying the pieces, if you're clever in using your parts.

Minimate Customs: Preacher, or I've Been Ripped Off

2011-04-14T10:48:00.000-04:00

Last week, ~~talented customizer~~ cheap hack Bob Harris showed off his entry in Custom Con 28 (that's an online "convention" of various action figure customizers showing off their work. Yes... it's as dorky as it sounds. At least we're not cosplayers! Well, maybe some are. I don't know them personally. Forget that part), this set of Preacher Minimates based on... well, Preacher. The very bloody (but pretty bloody good, though that's a bone of contention between my lovely wife and myself) comic book series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon published by Vertigo several years ago. Now, I know what you're thinking..." Hey Ken, didn't you make Preacher customs ages ago? Weren't you all ready to submit them to Custom Con yourself as part of your big Vertigo Minimates set? Didn't Bob Harris, despite living in Germany and not know where you live, obviously break into your house and steal your ideas?"

And the answer is: of course that's what happened.

Because, as you'll see from these pictures, our formulas are too remarkably similar for there to be any other explination. So I've decided to post pics of my own, just to set the record straight.

That's Jesse Custer (A.K.A Preacher), girlfriend Tulip, and vampire pal Cassidy, from left to right. But let's look at pictures of each, since I bothered to take them in the first place.

Bob and I used the same starting point for this guy: the Spirit's chest, white legs, and a collar (though Bob chose an all-white collar, while I used a black one with a little white paint. Artist's interpretation, I guess). His head and hair come from VP Gaius Baltar, and while I still like the head, I have to admit that Bob's choice of hairpiece is better. But ultimately, mine is clearly superior, because... he's got a Bible! Yeah! What kinda Preacher doesn't have a bible?

So... Tulip. Not much to say about her, except that Bob and I both had the tank top look in mind; seemed the most natural for the character. Her head, I think, comes from this Starbuck, and her hair's from the White Queen.

Cassidy... well, I threw him together to complete the set, and because I had a Cyclops head and Hydro-Man hair that worked nicely for him. We both used the same vest, though Bob did take the time there to paint his to be comics-accurate, so props to him. Doesn't make up for the Bible, though.

So there you go... coincidence or thievery? You decide. I should point out, in Bob's defense, he did also make these swell Seraphim and Saint of Killers Minimates, which I didn't do... but is he just trying to cover his tracks, Create plausible denyability? Dunno. I still can't figure out if he's this guy or not.

Banes of My Existence: Pennies

2011-03-30T11:08:00.000-04:00

So I was at a fast food restaurant the other day... I've always found it strange to refer to fast food places as "restaurants". Technically they are, I suppose, but only in the way that MTV is "music television", which is to say in name only. Anyway, at this fast food joint which shall remain nameless (but it was Wendy's) I bought a chicken nuggets meal, medium size, and it was yummy, thanks for asking. But while my appetite may have been sated, I left said establishment (again: Wendy's) less then satisfied. For, you see, the cost of my meal- which, I must remind you, was ordered from a FIXED menu- was the painfully awkward figure of $6.02.

Six. Oh. Two. There is no reason on God's green Earth for Wendy's to charge an extra .02 cents rather then a nice, round six dollars. Well, okay, outside of greed, because when you add up all those .02 cents over the course of a year, it's probably a nice amount. But I'll tell you a little secret: I would gladly- GLADLY!- pay $6.05 just to not get those three pennies back.

Pennies exist for one reason, and one reason only-- to make change. I carry pennies with me only so that I can avoid getting more pennies. Doesn't that seem silly? Doesn't that seem like a complete waste of time? Doesn't that seem like one little irritant from our daily lives that we could happily remove? And I'll tell you something else: most businesses would gladly get rid of the penny. Remember the penny shortage from a decade ago? Of course you don't. The only thing sillier would be a junk mail shortage. See, there was a penny shortage, because the vast, vast majority of the things don't circulate. So banks didn't have enough to give out, and retailers had to jump through hoops to make correct change. It was preposterous.

The West Wing talked about eliminating the penny in an episode, and concluded that it wouldn't happen because Illinois wouldn't like it, because Abraham Lincoln's on the penny. But... but... haven't we honored Lincoln enough? He's still got the five dollar bill, after all. And that great monument in Washington. And a bunch of other things. Really, I think we've done all right by ol' Abe. And who really wants to keep Illinois happy anyway? After all, as John Oliver points out, you're statisically more likely to go to jail if you're elected governor of Illinois then if you grow up in South Central L.A.

Here's a link to the Citizens for Retiring the Penny; I urge you all to join. I'm throwing my considerable socio-political weight behind this thing. Let's get this done, and have one less useless irritant out of our lives. Up next: cigarettes and guns.

Poem for Hillary-- Valentine's Day 2011

2011-02-14T19:25:00.002-05:00

As some of you no doubt know, my wife has been doing a new thing each day this year, and recording the results on her blog. Of course I had many suggestions of things for her to try, one of which was to write a sonnet for Valentine's Day, which I'd do likewise. Then we'd each post the results on our blog, as kind of a crossover. I'm afraid it didn't quite work out that way-- we didn't write sonnets. And Hillary's ended up being much longer then mine. But mine's as long as it needs to be; it hit the point that I didn't want to add anything more to it. So here it is.

Song for Raining

The drops of rain tick- tack against our window
As we lay in bed; a lazy morn made
For lazy cats.
Our best moments come
Nestled against each other;
For love is meant to be a cozy thing,
A sustaining song echoed throughout the body;
And though love may change us,
Asking us to adopt new names, new roles
We gladly cast aside our old meanings
For what we find on the other side is
A better us, the sum of our wholes,
A small shining light
Spied in a dream.
....

And here's Hillary's. Happy Valentine's Day!

Minimate Customs: Batman Friends and Foes

2011-02-12T13:44:00.002-05:00

So, while we are waiting for the Best Customs of 2010 results to roll in, I thought I'd take the time to clear out some of my customs in one big post. I've made a lot of Batman related customs over the years, so making a big post of some of them will serve as both a nice theme and to clear out some of my backlog. Previously, I posted my Two Face and Commishioner Gordon & Oracle customs, so be sure to check them out if you've never seen them.

Modern Robin

Made just in time to fall out of continuity, this costume was worn by Tim Drake post Infinite Crisis. I think it's a nice update on the previous Robin costume, which itself was a nice update on the original Robin costume. Ah, evolution at work. This Minimate is basically an update of the previous Tim Drake Robin Minimate, using that chest, with the head from Bucky, hair from Jubilee (ironically herself a Robin pastiche), gloves and belt from an old C3 Batman, some red legs and arms, and a freshly painted Batman cape. Of course, Robin is now Damian Wayne, and Tim Drake goes by the name...

Red Robin

This costume was originally designed by Alex Ross for Kingdom Come, a book a lot of people like better then I do. But I think this costume is just terrific, easily the best Robin costume ever designed. Here's a look at seemingly the only Ross image of this costume anyone has scanned:

Nice, right? It combines all the best elements of Robin's costume, updated with some Batman-inspired flair. In the book, this costume is worn by Dick Grayson using the name "Red Robin", and I think had Alex Ross been around back in 1984, he might have just become Red Robin and not Nightwing. Anyway, this costume was TG2BF, so it was (inexplicably) given to Jason Todd in Countdown, and is now (also inexplicably) being worn by Tim Drake as Red Robin in current DC continuity. How long that will last is anyone's guess.

Anyway. The Minimate was also made using a C3 Batman, in this case the mask (minus ears, naturally). The gloves also come from him, though eventually I need to shave off those Bat-wings. His little skirt thing comes from Robin, of course, and the cape's a Sentry repaint (I think). The chest is a decal, which I adapted from this Red Robin Cubee I found on Deviantart. Finally, here's the decal, for any other Red Robin fans out there:

Poison Ivy

I prefer the classic, Caucasian Ivy, as opposed to the green-skinned version that's been running around for the past few years, so that's what you get here. Head's from Polaris (who quite conveniently has green eyes and lips), and the torso's from the White Queen, with some green Sharpie work. Her hair is taken from Kitty Pryde, and her gloves and boots both come from Robin.

Alfred

I recall someone on the Minimate Multiverse forum remarking that this Tony Stark head would make for a nice Alfred head, and darned if it doesn't. I'm blanking right now on where that hairpiece comes from (if I remember, I'll edit this), but I had the head and hair sitting around for ages before finally getting a tuxedo body hidden under this movie Iron Man. Sadly, we almost got an official Alfred back in the C3 days, before that line was unceremoniously scrapped.

Catwoman

This isn't so much a custom as an update of the Catwoman released as, once again, the C3 line. Basically, it's the mask, arms and gloves of that figure combined with the legs and body of the Iron Man Movie Black Widow. I think it looks a bit more like Darwyn Cooke's version of her, though eventually I'd like to add the classic purple and green Catwoman to my collection.

Ra's Al Ghul and Talia

These were actually cobbled together quite some time apart, but I keep them together for obvious reasons. Talia uses Silver Fox (from Wolverine:Origins) as her base, and is one of my favorite quick customs. Originally I was only going to use the chest until I found a better alternative for her jumpsuit look, but it grew on me pretty quickly so I've kept it. Her hair's also from Silver Fox, and the head (I think) was under Batwoman's mask. Gloves are from the Invisible Girl, boots from a Star Trek Minimate, and the belt and holster are from a BSG pilot.

Ra's would probably have to be considered a young Ra's; he sure looks healthier then normal. But you work with what you have. His head's from this Iron Man (and if not this one, then a different Iron Man), and his hair from this Wolverine (ditto). His body, sash included, comes entirely from under the Mandarin's robe. Not sure who I stole the sword from, but you can be sure he's not happy about it.

Mr. Zsasz

A minor villain, but fun nonetheless (can you tell I'm running out of enthusiasm for this post and just looking to get to the end?). He came together when I realized that the head from Nitro would work just about perfectly. Hair's from Eddie Brock, knife's from the New Goblin, and the slash marks (Zsasz is a serial killer who keeps a running tally of his victims on his body) are Sharpied. Frankly, I was just happy to find a use for that stupid Eddie Brock hair.

Red Hood

Not a character I have any affinity for, and basically thrown together only because I realized that the extra Deadpool hood would work pretty well here. Coat's from the Terminator, legs are from a Ghostbuster, weapons were scrounged from various sources. One more to go....

Professor Hugo Strange

About as quick as a quick custom can be, that's the Old Man Logan Hawkeye head on one of these little Batsuits that were included with most of the C3 Batman vehicle sets. I was just looking to use some parts up.

And this concludes my Batman customs to this point, save for one more who deserves his own post. And I will never, ever look to post so many !@#$ Minimate customs at one time again.

EDIT: Aw man, I forgot Black Mask. Well, he's pretty simple:

Ghost Rider head Sharpied black on Agent Zero's body. I originally made him for a Vanilla Minimates contest over at the Minimates Factory, then was too lazy to enter him. Sigh.

Twitter is my Super Bowl MVP

2011-02-07T10:53:00.001-05:00

So my Super Bowl Sunday began with this:

That's what now resides on the home page of my favorite illegal streaming site. I had been planning to watch the game on my computer, which I'd done the last month since we officially shut off our Direct TV. Our TV viewing habits have so changed that basically the only thing we were watching as it was broadcast were live sports ("we" meaning "me"), and once my buddy Kevin turned me on to this particular site, there was really no reason to keep paying those bills. Imagine my surprise, then, when I clicked my bookmark at 6:30 EST Sunday night and saw that the feds had spoiled my fun, apparently as part of a pre-Super Bowl crackdown on anyone that might wish to spoil Fox's God-given right to force us to watch their broadcast.

I was apologetic. Surely God (figuratively) and country (literally) weren't going to deny me the culmination of the NFL season over my morally questionable practices? In Sarah Palin's America? Outrageous. So I turned to the last refuge of the internet desperate: Google. Various searches, like "Super Bowl watch online" and "Super Bowl live stream" confirmed only that the game was NOT being streamed legally anywhere, and that the remaining options were even more dubious then my previous site. More then once (well, twice) I gave up, only to think "maybe if I tried this..." or even "how bad could the Malware be...".

Then I noticed, though, as part of my search, a similar query had gone out from Alleycat17 on her Twitter feed. Yes, the famous Alleycat17! I know, right? Anyway, she tweeted this, just minutes before my search, and as I impatiently reloaded the page, I thought about what to call myself. A Tweet Leech? Can that be a thing? Finally, my patience and hard work were rewarded with this. Success!

And I thank you as well, Winchester84. You do, in fact, rock.

The feed I ended up watching came from Sky Sports, the big ESPN-esque channel in the UK. While they used the normal Fox broadcast. they augmented things with their own analysts, culled from the dregs of all potential football talking heads in the country. In the studio (which was presumably in London, though it was never said, and everyone on camera was an American, and I don't know why they'd bother flying them across the Ocean, but who the hell knows, I don't know why they had them on in the first place), was Some Guy. He was joined by onetime Eagles fullback Cecil Martin (the worst game I've ever heard. Seriously, at one point he said "The Steelers are out of this game right now, but they're still in this game." What the what?) and former NFL quarterback Jay Scroeder, who looks less like a former NFL quarterback then anyone else ever. Let's see if we can find a relatively current picture:

Your next school board vice-president

He actually had more hair on the sides and less on top last night, which made him look more like a weenie. A refreshing change from Joe Theismann, though. They also had a crew at the game, including a British guy whom, we were told, "knows more about the Pittsburgh Steelers then anyone" (a comment sure to set US-UK relations back decades), a guy names Sean, whose last name I never caught and who disappeared at halftime, and (I'm not making this up) the wide receivers coach at Southern Methodist University. Seriously. He's got to be, like, 400th on list of possible Super Bowl analysts. And I could understand if this broadcast was for, say, the Ivory Coast. But this is the UK! You gotta step it up! At least get a position coach for an NFL team!

As for the game itself... it was fine. I don't think you'll ever see clearer proof that the key to winning in the NFL is turnovers. The Packers won because the Steelers turned the ball over three times, which Green Bay converted into three touchdowns. The end. There was an odd stretch, from basically the second quarter into the third, where Pittsburgh seemed to impose their will on the game without ever actually taking the lead. I know everyone's talking about Mendenhall's fumble being the key play of the game (and it was) but I thought Steelers' coach Mike Tomlin's decision to go for a 52-yard field goal after a nice drive stalled was a big deal. Pittsburgh at that point had established a big advantage in field position, and if they'd just been a little patient and pinned Green Bay back, they'd be able to go back on the attack with a short field quickly. But Tomlin got jumpy, surprising for a guy that doesn't seem to rattle. And I thought his counterpart, Mike McCarthy, did kind of a lousy job at calling plays. He called an Andy Reid-esque 40 pass plays to 10 runs (roughly) and every Eagles fan in the world will tell you that's no way to win.

But win his team did, because Pittsburgh was oddly tight, and Aaron Rodgers made enough plays. Good for him I think NFL fans around the country have been pulling for him, just to stick it to Brett Favre. I also thought the broadcast was pretty good. I know I'm in the minority, but I generally enjoy Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, and I thought they did a fine job. Unlike when I'm watching a game called by, say, CBS' Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, I didn't find myself talking back to the screen in exasperation the way my wife finds oh so funny. And, because I wasn't watching the US broadcast, I didn't see any commercials, which is just fine with me. Perhaps the single most overblown aspect of American culture, outside of the Tea Party, is the notion that the Super Bowl commercials are somehow special or noteworthy. Perhaps that was true twenty years ago, but now it's just mostly the same bullshit Budweiser commercials we suffer through the rest of the year. I've gotta check out that Darth Vader VW add, though.

And finally, I did catch a bit of the Black Eyed Peas performance (muted, naturally). And guess what: they sucked! But at least they looked goofy doing so.

Minimate Customs: Best of 2010

2011-01-26T16:48:00.000-05:00

So some of the guys over at the Minimate Multiverse are holding a Best Customs of 2010 contest, and I've decided to enter my wares. Some of my entries will be guys I've already shown here, but some are not, and seeing as how I needed to host my photos somewhere in order to send them in... here are my entries in the Best Customs of 2010 contest!

First off, here's the ones I've previously shown that I'm nominating:

Best Marvel Comics custom: Quasar
Best other comics custom: Grendel
Best movies/tv/video game custom: Strong Bad

Okay, here's the new guys.

Best DC Comics custom: The Sandman

This guy came about rather serendipitously. I'd wanted to make him for ages, but was stymied by the lack of a gas mask in the right style. Then came the announcement of the MAX line, which features Minimates of policemen and firemen and the like, and includes a very nice gas mask. There's step one. I also had sitting around in my parts box the hat from the female Question, which I'd mutilated in an attempt to remove the hair. The problem was that the hat was so freaking big that it looked ridiculous on top of a Minimate head without all that hair. So it had been useless to me... but proved to be just the right size for the gas mask after I lopped it off the fireman helmet. I ended up using a black Sharpie to darken in the lenses of the mask. Here's a closer look:

The rest went off without a hitch. His coat, arms and legs are from a Back to the Future Doc Brown, his chest is from a Western Minimate, and his gas gun is a repurposed Star Trek phaser rifle (which I'd like to replace if I ever get a better idea. I'm really happy with how he turned out (obviously, or I wouldn't be nominating him for such a prestigious award). Oh, here's a look at what I was going for, from the great Matt Wagner:

Best box set/series of four: the Challengers of the Unknown

I honestly don't have a lot to say about these guys, as they are pretty simple, but I made 'em, and they fit the category, so might as well nominate 'em. The Challs- from left to right, Red, Ace, Rocky, and Prof, respectively- are a Jack Kirby creation that a lot of historians consider a precursor to the Fantastic Four. They are basically a team of adventurers in purple jumpsuits, and I was happy to make them. The heads and hair come from various Minimates, and I'm not about to try and figure out which exactly. The bodies were made by using the chest and crotch of the original Green Goblin, and the arms and legs come from Sentinels. And believe me, it was a pain to get four Sentinels.

Best Quick Custom: Shanna the She-Devil

A quick custom is a Minimate that's put together using all existing parts, without modification. Now, most of my customs probably fall into that category (though that's changing more and more), but this is one I particularly like. Shanna the She-Devil is Marvel's jungle girl (a archetype that has a long and somewhat dubious history). For the past several years, she's mostly been associated with Ka-Zar (for simplicity's sake, Marvel's Tarzan) but she actually appeared as the star of her own short-lived series. Here's a cover by the legendary Jim Steranko (who sadly did not do the interiors):

She's become even more bimboized in recent years, but I still like her original (slightly) more modest fur bathing suit. Anyway, I was almost immediately inspired to make her when this Iron Man 2 Black Widow figure was announced. Her face comes from BSG Captivity Six, her hair from the awful 90's Jean Grey, and she was rounded out with a little knife and this necklace thingie from one of the Street Fighters which I just happened to have laying around.

So that's it... I'll be sure to update y'all on how this thing goes. I'm sure you can't wait.

You've Gone Too Far, Conan

2011-01-26T11:03:00.001-05:00

Look, I've been a Conan O'Brien fan for a long time. I've been on Team CoCo long before we were calling it Team CoCo. And sure, I never watched a minute of his "Tonight Show", but I was still outraged when he got hosed for Leno. And, even though I haven't watched his new show, I'm glad it's there. But now... now I'm not so sure. Because Conan... you have crossed the line.

Now, let's overlook for now Conan's rather baffling inclusion of longtime Flash nemesis Captain Boomerang on a list of super heroes that suck, or his declaration that the guy who came up with a magic ring that turns the bearer's thoughts into solid-light constructs was "mailing it in that day". No, what's really stirred me up is that Conan had the audacity to call Bat Lash- Bat Lash!- lame. And that is something for which I shall not stand.

Bat Lash is a western character (please note I said western character, not super hero, which should automatically disqualify him from Conan's list. But I digress) created by Reuben- award winning cartoonist (which is the highest award a cartoonist can receive, not, in this case, a sandwich) Sergio Argones. He briefly had his own series in the late '60s, written by Argones and Denny O'Neil and beautifully illustrated by Nick Cardy. Lash was a character very much influenced by the popular James Garner tv show Maverick, and his adventures were quite unlike any other western series comics had seen. Though short lived, Bat Lash is remembered as one of the high points of the Silver Age, and widely regarded now as a classic. One of the first things I did when I started buying Silver Age comics was put together a complete run of Bat Lash, and I was not disappointed. They are great comics, very sophisticated for the time and well worth reading.

In short, Bat Lash does not suck. He is awesome. You know who sucks? Conan!

Conan's entire argument against Bat Lash seems to revolve around the fact that he looks like a bit of a dandy. Now, I will grant you that the illustration that Conan showed (by Dave Gibbons, which I can't seem to find online) is not the most flattering, but come on. Just because a man appreciates the finer things in life, it doesn't make him gay! That's like saying that recently deceased NFL Hall of Famer Cookie Gilchrist wasn't a tough guy because he answered to the name "Cookie". And Cookie Gilchrist was plenty tough. Tough as nails.

One of the things that's always kinda bugged me about Conan is that he's obviously a geek, but he often ridicules geek culture for the sake of Joe Six-Pack. He's like a geek minstrel. It's just sad. Well, I for one am not going to take it any more. You're dead to me, Conan. Dead to me! From now on, I'll stick with a geek who remembers his roots: Stephen Colbert.

I'll give you Space Ranger and Ultra the Mulit-Alien, though. They do suck.

Wrapping Up Ex Machina

2011-01-20T11:05:00.001-05:00

So I just read the last volume of Ex Machina, which has been out for a little while, but being frugal I waited until I found a copy for a price I could stomach on Amazon (boy, that must drive comic book creators nuts. They already hate that we wait for the trade, and now they've got to deal with us waiting for the trade at a discount). This was a bit of a milestone for me, because Ex Machina is the first comics series that I bought and read entirely in trade paperbacks as they were being published. I've read other series entirely in this fancy new format, but that was always after publication had long begun (and, in some cases, finished) and it was just easier to buy the books. But this was the first time that a new series was published, and I said nope, I'd rather have those as books, I'm gonna wait. Now that's become standard practice for me, but at the time I remember it being excruciating. I'd see the new issue on the shelf, and want to read it, but I'd pull my hand away like Stimpy with the History Eraser Button:

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;Watch &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.fanpop.com/spots/old-school-nickelodeon/videos/806840"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Ren and Stimpy - History Eraser Button&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; on &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.fanpop.com/"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Fanpop&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

But I digress. Ex Machina volume 10 was about as good as the rest of the series. Which is to say, it was what it was. At some point, Ex Machina went from a book I enjoyed quite a bit, and to which I looked forward, to one I liked well enough and didn't think about much at all. And I'm not quite sure how or why that happened; I don't think there was a decrease in quality somewhere along the way. Rather, I think it was the repetition of quality, month in and month out, from volume to volume, that eventually allowed this title to settle into a kind of blase sameness that defined the book for at least the second half of it's fifty issues (plus multiple specials).

It certainly started with an intriguing premise: Mitchell Hundred is the world's only super hero, the Great Machine, a civil engineer who gains the ability to communicate with machines after a strange device blows up in his face. He uses his new powers to fulfill his longstanding fantasy of being a super hero, until he realizes that it's a pretty dumb fantasy. But he comes out of retirement on 9/11, using his powers to guide the second plane away from the Twin Towers, saving the building and thousands of lives, and casting himself as a hero in the process. He used that notoriety as a springboard to an unlikely and successful run towards the mayor's office, where the bulk of the series is focused.

I was never sure if Ex Machina was a super hero comic masquerading as a political comic, or a political comic masquerading as a super hero comic. I suppose that was part of the charm; Ex Machina didn't really read like anything else on the stands. Writer Brian K. Vaughn used a unique storytelling format, jumping around different times within the course of a story, with the bulk of the action being set during Hundred's one term as mayor, a flashback to the Great Machine years, and occasional bits in his distant past or ominous future. And it was a clever storytelling formula, but a formula nonetheless, and like any formula eventually the methodology becomes obvious, the beats predictable.

Meanwhile, artist Tony Harris provided a similar conundrum. His work, which relies heavily on photo reference, is nicely stylized, but drifts into sameness all too quickly. Ex Machina seems to me at once both easy and difficult to illustrate, because most of the book is simply people talking, which is not hard to draw (or shouldn't be, for a professional), but not easy to make interesting. And Harris pulls it off, mostly. But it's a very dark, moody book, artistically, all of which makes it both unique and somehow unmemorable.

And I think, reading this last chapter of Mitchell Hundred's saga, that's my big takeaway from the book ultimately: moody and unmemorable. A few books ago, when the conspiracy against Hundred began to take shape, and one of its' members revealed she blamed the Mayor for her sister's death, I realized that I'd totally forgotten about that. I vaguely recalled the character, but her death had meant... not much. Likewise, I recognized the book's big villain, but I don't have the foggiest notion about the events in her story that lead up to volume ten. And I suppose that's my fault, and my faulty memory, but it's also the fault of the book: far, far too often, the big moments weren't very big at all, and ultimately not very memorable. Thus the resulting payoff isn't really much of a payoff, because the original events didn't make enough of an impression.

And then there's the ending, the big reveal as to what granted Hundred his powers, which isn't so much as a reveal as it is a vague allusion to something broader (it won't surprise you to learn that Vaugn was a writer on Lost). Vaugn's a good writer, and he has a unique voice, but all of his characters speak in it, interchangeably. I couldn't really say what the differences in personality are for any of the characters in Ex Machina, or from his other major work, Y the Last Man, for that matter.

So Ex Machina is gone, and the comics world is better for it's existence, but I can't say I'll miss it much. After all, I stopped noticing when it was still around.

Minimate Customs: Two Face

2011-01-13T13:13:00.002-05:00

So here's my first Minimate custom for the new year. I'm jumping ahead quite a bit by showing him, but I'm so happy with him I just can't wait. When DC Direct broke the hearts of children worldwide by electing to end DC Minimates for no good reason, there were several huge omissions from the DCU. Perhaps the biggest was Two Face, in that we had most of the other major members of Batman's rogues gallery (Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman), but not Two Face. Moreover, Two Face's unique appearance was a test for any customizer, certainly one with my mediocre skills. So I figured that the only way I'd ever get Two Face was to commission him, leaving a hole in my collection... and my heart... big enough for two.

The end.

Well, no, of course not, because I wouldn't be writing this if I hadn't figured out a way to make Two Face myself. I first began to think he was possible when I saw this hairpiece for the Half Human Terminator, which you'll notice has one side of his hair all mussed up like a certain former Gotham City District Attorney. Once I started to play around with making decals, and becoming a competent painter, I was pretty sure I could pull him off. So without further ado...

Pretty sharp, huh? He turned out better then I could have hoped. The hair piece works very well, with a little white paint, though I discovered after I had it in my hands that there's a large cut on the left side, which makes it look like Harvey's loosing his hair. Like the poor guy doesn't have enough to worry about. For the decal, I fooled around with a couple different things, but I ended up using Javier Pulado's wonderful cover to Robin: Year One #2 as my basis, which I think works really, really well. I was a little worried that it would look too different from a normal Minimate's face, but I don't think it's a problem at all. Here's the decal I used:

I had already decided that I didn't want to do Two Face in either of the traditional color schemes you normally see him in, orange/ purple and black/white. A quick image search for Two Face showed several alternatives, allowing me to believe that I wasn't committing some kind of heresy by painting him whatever the hell colors I wanted. I settled on brown and green simply because I had matching brown parts, and I hadn't actually used my green paints for anything yet. But I think it gives him a unique look. I rounded him out with the hand holding a locket from one of the Western sets, which I think makes a nice stand-in for Two Face's coin, at least until I come up with something better.

As a bonus, here's the other Two Face decals I made, and didn't use. Both use half a face from one of Luke Porter's decals (the Shield Agent, I think), one with the Pulado scarred side, and the other with details from a Lego custom I found somewhere. I certainly think the above face is the best, but feel free to disagree.

Minimate Customs: Strong Bad

2010-12-27T00:35:00.002-05:00

This one's a little bit of a departure, in that this Minimate was not made for myself, but for my wife as one of her Christmas presents. Hillary's a big fan of the web cartoon Homestar Runner, and in particular Homestar's (I guess?) nemesis, Strong Bad. Here's a look at the guy:

Well, one day I was scrolling through Cubeecraft, a site that offers free downloadable papercraft toys. They are very neat, but also make for great Minimate decal templates (with some adaptation). One of the characters available in their pop culture section is (you guessed it) Strong Bad, which put the idea in my head. I had a couple sets of boxing gloves sitting around from the Rocky Minimates, so once I made the template, the rest was easy.

As you can see, Strong Bad's rather... unique body type doesn't translate exactly to a Minimate's dimensions, but what can you do? Really, the hardest part of the whole thing was not giving him to Hillary right away, but I stayed strong and made it to Christmas morning, where he was warmly received. I also made one of these for my buddy Dave, another big Strong Bad fan, but he's a little different, since I didn't have another pink torso handy and had to use a slightly tan one. Hope he's opened it by now....

Oh, and here's my decal, in case anyone out there wants their own (you're on your own for the boxing gloves, though):

Minimate Customs: Shade the Changing Man

2010-12-22T14:41:00.000-05:00

One of my all-time favorite comics series is Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man, one of the late '80's mature readers books that DC published that eventually became the foundation for Vertigo. For my money, it's the best long series in the Vertigo catalog; yes, better then Sandman, and Preacher, and certainly the criminally overrated Transmetropolitan. Though, I have to say, the series does fall apart a bit after issue #50, when Milligan kills off one of the main characters whom, it turns out, was actually the heart and soul of the book. Milligan admitted in an interview with the Comics Journal that this was probably a mistake, although it's one that he would repeat again in X-Statix. Some people never learn, even when they learn.

Anyway. To give you an idea of who I'm talking about, here's a couple bonus wallpapers I made of Shade:

The artwork here is by Chris Bachelo, Shade's original artist who would go on to greater fame at Vertigo by illustrating two Death mini-series. He then went to Marvel, where he does largely shitty (though stylish) work on the likes of the X-Men, Spider-Man, and other characters for whom he's wholly inappropriate.

So Shade was always on my to-do list, and, well, one day I did 'em.

His hair comes from the Secret Invasion Phoenix, his head from BSG's Sam Anders. The hair, I think, is what spurred on his creation, but the face is what gives him just the right poet/pretty boy look. His boots come from the ice skates that came with Pet Shop Adrian (and yes, I hated to ruin them, but sacrifices must be made sometimes).

And the coat. Shade's funky coat. I really wasn't sure how to do this; in the comics, Shade's coat is very much the byproduct of computer coloring, so I tried as best I could to replicate the blend. It's just an old white lab coat Sharpied in many colors. Here's a look from the back:

For once, my general sloppiness was actually a help, and not a burden. He may well be my favorite Minimate custom; my buddy Kevin called him my "masterpiece", and I'm not one to argue... okay, I am, but not in this instance. Issues of Shade are pretty easy to find in the cheapie bins, and DC has been reprinting the series recently; if your curiosity is at all peaked by what you see here, I strongly recommend you check this overlooked classic out.

The Miracle at the New Meadowlands

2010-12-20T09:47:00.000-05:00

Haven't seen this yet? Then watch it, because it's fucking awesome:

I love Joe Buck's call: "Gets a block! Are you kidding!"

I Made a Quiz--Marvel/DC Crossovers

2010-12-15T23:49:00.001-05:00

Yeah, busy day around here... I made another comics quiz. This one relates to the Marvel/DC intercompany crossovers, on which I'll have more to say at some point.

Can you name the DC/Marvel Comics intercompany crossovers? - sporcle

I Made a Quiz-- Showcase 1st Appearances

2010-12-15T14:47:00.001-05:00

Here's a new comics quiz that I made: characters that first appeared in DC's legendary 60's series Showcase. Not a whole lot more to say about it.

Can you name the comic book characters that first appeared in Showcase? - sporcle

Minimate Customs: Hourman and Green Lantern

2010-12-12T08:58:00.005-05:00

As I've mentioned in the past, a lot of my work has been done in filling out the ranks of the DC Minimate Universe. And a big part of that has been finishing off the Justice Society of America, comics' first super team. One of my favorites has always been Hourman; I think I probably first saw him in an old JSA/JLA crossover (which used to happen annually in the pages of Justice League of America), and I first really took notice of him in a not-quite-as-old JSA/JLA crossover. Basically, I just liked his costume: yellow and black, with a cool yellow hood. And he had unique abilities, gaining superhuman strength and speed for an hour by taking what is, in effect, a short-term steroid pill. It's probably pretty dumb for a guy that only has super powers for an hour at a time to advertise that in his name, but whatever. Here's the cover to one of those JLA issues featuring Hourman (he's on the left between the Golden Age Flash and Black Canary):

So Hourman was obviously on my short list, but a little daunting because of his hood. But I got an idea on how to pull it off by looking at the Pocket Superheroes Hourman, which uses a yellow hood piece with some black paint on the head to replicate the traditional black shading of Hourman's hood. Bingo.
The Pocket Superheroes figure also came in handy because I was able to swipe his hourglass for this guy. His hood comes from the Spectre (painted yellow, obviously), and his head from the Spirit, with some black Sharpie extending the mask (more on the Spirit some other time). His cape comes from Robin, with some red and black Sharpie detail work, also seen on the legs from the AIM Soldier. Rounding him out is a belt from Daredevil, with the billyclub holster cut off. I'm pretty happy with him; I suppose I could still paint over those little black lines on his legs, but other then that he's pretty great.

I'm going to post one more today-the Golden Age Green Lantern- featuring my first foray into the world of decals. Most of the better customizers have been using decals for years, but I've only now been getting into them, thanks to the example set by the great Luke Porter at the Minimate Factory. Luke was kind enough to send me a few decals to sample, and I've since started making and printing my own. I'll start showing those off once I take some pictures of the finished projects.

Anyway. This custom stems directly from a discussion on the Minimate Multiverse boards about making an Alan Scott custom. I stole... er... copied the formula used by MM member Nervous, subbing a Hal Jordan GL head for the one he made (with the mask Sharpied purple, which wasn't 100% successful). The cape comes from Ocean Master, the belt from Ares, and my favorite touch, his ring hand, comes from the Kingpin (more Sharpieing here). Oh, I guess I should post the picture:

His boots aren't really comics-accurate, but make for an acceptable (and easy!) substitute. Even without the decal he's pretty much recognizable, but with it he's better then I could have hoped. These guys are two of my favorites, and the best of the JSA ones I've done, save for a few villains that I'll be showing off at some point.

Banes of My Existence: Joe Theismann

2010-12-02T22:38:00.006-05:00

Joe Theismann is the absolute worst football color commentator I've ever heard. He was a key cog in what was, year after year, the most dreadful announcing team ever: the ESPN Sunday Night Football crew, with Mike Patrick and, later, Paul McGuire. Paul Zimmerman, the great Sports Illustrated football writer, used to rank the NFL announce teams every year, and he railed against these clowns for year. I don't think they ever managed a star (out of a five star system), and I don't recall anyone ever expressing disagreement. Simply put, Joe Theismann makes a broadcast unlistenable.

He was finally put out to pasture, after one year on Monday Night Football. And no one outside of Joe Theismann missed him for one bleeping second. But, inexplicably, the NFL Network added him to the pretty solid team of Bob Papa and Matt Millen, and the result has been sadly predictable. Imagine if FEMA decided to give Mike Brown another shot, and you'll get the idea.

Anyway, I wanted to share a few nuggets from tonight's Eagles-Texans game:

Talking about a Texans receiver whom had just made a catch on second down: "I wouldn't be surprised if they go back to him right here." This was said as the receiver was shown heading to the sidelines.
After an Eagles sack: "Well, that's what happens when you send more then they can block. [Brief pause.] This time, it's only four."
Seconds before the referee announces an offensive holding call, said confidently: "This'll be defensive holding".
On Houston star receiver Andre Johnson, late in the game: "The Eagles have completely taken Andre Johnson out of the second half of this game. He had the one catch along the sideline for about 7 yards, but that's it". Johnson's second half stats to that point: 3 catches for 58 yards, including a 31 yarder. As if to pound the point home, NFL Network posted his stats to that point: 4 catches, 100 yards.

Theismann is the classic example of a dumb guy that thinks he's smart, and tries to prove it over and over. Oh, I almost forgot, my favorite Joe Theismann factoid! Joe's second wife, Jeanne, caught him in an affair and confronted him. As she told the court during their divorce proceedings: ''he said, and I quote, 'God wants Joe Theismann to be happy.' ''

When Killing Spider-Man is Your Best Idea, You're Out of Ideas

2010-11-21T15:30:00.001-05:00

Okay, I'm going to level with you here: the main reason for this post is to break up the monotony of Minimate custom posts. If I'm not careful, this blog will devolve into nothing more then a home for them... and we don't want that, do we? I'm more then just a Minimate customizer. I've got thoughts, feelings, opinions that should... nay, must be shared, for the good of society.

On the other hand, I suppose I also post Sporcle quizzes, so... ah, I've already started typing. Might as well keep going.

The biggest problem in comics these days (not the only problem, mind you, but the biggest) is that the companies rely too much on stunts and gimmicks rather then good solid storytelling to sell comics. Now, I'm not saying that good solid storytelling has disappeared, but rather that books don't succeed or fail because of their quality. I can't tell you the amount of comics that have come and gone recently that everyone seems to like, but can barely sustain a readership above 20,000 copies a month and are thus canceled within two years. The reasons for these failures are varied, I'm sure, but basically it all boils down to a matter of perception. Books that don't "matter" don't sell, period, regardless of quality.

I put "matter" in quotes there because, well, it's just comics. Nothing really matters. I remember Valiant Comics once referring to an issuer (Rai #0, if memory serves) as "the lynchpin of history". Which was a great little line, but ultimately meaningless, particularly after Valiant went bankrupt. Hyperbole has become such the norm in trying to sell comics that it's just a bunch of empty calories. I recently read a Marvel solicitation that referred to "legendary artist Barry Kitson". Really? Legendary? No offense to Barry Kitson; he's perfectly fine. But I doubt anyone's writing ballads about him.

Hyperbole... I keep expecting people to become numb to it, and maybe they are. Maybe that's why readership is falling so precipitously; people just get sick of all the hype, month after month, and just stop reading altogether. Each subsequent stunt and gimmick does worse then the one that preceded it, and overall sales fall, forcing the publishers to rely more on stunts and gimmicks.

Which finally brings me around to what I want to talk about today: Marvel's announcement this week of their latest gimmick, "the Death of Spider-Man". Now, don't get too excited: it's not really Spider-Man that's dying. It's Ultimate Spider-Man, a bait-and-switch worthy of your local nightly news. Just for fun, here's some copy from the press release, and one I made up: "...the groundbreaking new story that forever changes the Ultimate Comics universe..."; "...this is the story that no comic fan can afford to miss ..."; "...he one thing that could be bigger than the CREATION of the Ultimate line..."; ...should be up there with the very small number of events that really mattered."

Good lord. Coming on a little strong there, don't you think? I guess they could have said "if you don't buy this comic, your entire fucking life will have been pointless", though I think that's implied. Or am I inferring?

The Ultimate Comics line, I think, makes a fine case study for what's ailing comics. Begun in 2000, the Ultimate Universe was designed by Marvel as a way of rebooting their characters without blowing up the regular Marvel Universe. Characters were modernized; whereas regular Spider-Man was a chemestry whiz, Ultimate Spider-Man was a computer prodigy. Continuity anchors were shucked, allowing creators to tell stories without worrying about having to make their work jibe with decades of history.

And it was a big deal. The Ultimate titles (Spider-Man and the X-Men) sold very well right out of the gate, and subsequent books were all hits, with the peak probably being Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's the Ultimates (aka Ultimate Avengers). Hell, even Ultimate Fantastic Four was a big seller, something that can't be said about the regular book since John Byrne left in 1986.

Personally, I was never a big fan. The whole thing seemed a little pointless, since much of the Ultimate line seemed dedicated to rehashing storylines that had occurred in the Marvel Universe over the course of it's forty-odd years. I read the first volume of Ultimate Spider-Man, and thought it was terrible. But I was clearly in the minority, and readers and talent flocked to the Ultimate books. At one point the Ultimate version of Marvel Comics seemed so much more popular then the regular one that it seemed to me replacing the latter with the former made a lot of sense.

But it was not to last. I can't say when it happened, exactly, but at some point Marvel seemed to focus all the attention they'd given to the Ultimate line back to the regular universe, and the fans followed. Here's the funny thing about Marvel Comics: they are by far the dominant publisher in American comics, but they only seem to be able to get their fan base really behind one area of their line at a time. In the '90's, it was the X-Men and their fifty billion spinoff titles (a conservative estimate), and everything else played second fiddle. For a while there, it was the Ultimate books, and now it's the core Marvel Heroes books carrying the standard. And I can't really say why this is, except to take it back to the earlier point about stunts and gimmicks. It's almost as if Marvel says "these are the books that we're focusing on; these are the ones that matter", and readership blindly follows.

Marvel tried to reignite the Ultimate line a couple years ago, cancelling all the core titles and running a stunt series called "Ultimatum". Even by the dubious standards of "event" comics, Ultimatum was a critical disaster. Written by Jeph Loeb, comics' answer to Michael Bay, Ultimatum both sold very well and killed off any lingering interest in the Ultimate line, as well as a score of characters. The core titles were relaunched with new numbering, but Ultimatum was so poorly received that much of the readership used it as a jumping-off point, and even formerly solid sellers struggled to regain their pre-Ultimatum sales numbers.

Ultimatum and its' high body count apparently weren't the sign of ultimate desperation (yes, pun intended. I think it's rather clever) it seemed. No, that's certainly "the Death of Spider-Man". Well, just think about the Marvel Universe- any Marvel Universe- without Spider-Man around. Who would want to read that? Whatever momentary sales boost the related titles will receive from the curious will be undone by the absolute collapse of post-Spider-Man sales. I've no doubt we'll be reading a lot in six months about how "exciting" an opportunity it is to tell stories without Spider-Man around; I also have no doubt we'll be reading about the end of Ultimate Comics this time next year.

Of course, in saying that, I'm making the probably foolish assumption that he's going to stay dead. After all, why wouldn't he? It's just Ultimate Spider-Man. Who cares?

Minimate Customs: the Demon, and Bonuses

2010-11-19T19:31:00.008-05:00

One of the things that delights and frustrates me is that there are several other little collectibles out there of a compatible size to Minimates. While it's irritating to see figures of characters that have never become Minimates (and, in the case of DC, probably never will), I'm always looking for ways to adapt these for my customs. One of my favorite, though ghastly, methods is lopping off their heads. Yes, this is basically just what it sounds like. Here's an example, the first time I did this, based on someone else's suggestion:

That's Black Manta, Aquaman's arch enemy, with a head from a DC Direct Pocket Super Heroes figure. Basically, you remove the head, then cut off the neck piece from a Minimate torso (which is a pain in the ass, let me tell you), and glue on the new head. Sure, it doesn't move, but it looks great, doesn't it?

The problem is that most of the figures of compatible size- Marvel's Super Hero Squad and DC's Action League, mainly- have goofy heads that wouldn't really work as a Minimate. With at least one notable exception: Jack Kirby's Demon, Etrigan!

As soon as I saw him, I knew that he would suit my purposes nicely. Unfortunately, as you can see, his noggin is a little big for a Minimate body, but I balanced that out by attaching it to Ma Hunkel's cape, which is nice and wide. I decided to use the torso, arms, and little skirt from the new Spider-Man villain Menace, which has a nice Medieval feel to it. Consequently Etrigan's not as bulky as you normally see; I like to think of him as based on Matt Wagner's version of Etrigan. Rounding things out are the hands from Ultimate Sabretooth, and a pair of Deadman booties colored with a purple Sharpie to match the rest of his outfit.

I was so pleased with him that I ended up throwing together a quick custom of Jason Blood, his alter ego:
He's a Sub-Mariner head and Clint Eastwood hair, colored red and silver. What pleases me most about this custom is that the Demon is a character I'd basically written off as being beyond my abilities, until I got a little creative. And he's not even the best Minimate I've made from an Action League figure....

Minimate Customs: Quasar

2010-11-07T10:11:00.007-05:00

I don't make many Marvel customs, for a few reasons. For one thing, the Marvel Minimates line is still going strong, so it's always possible, likely even, that my custom will be replaced by an "official" one. Conversely, DC 'mates were prematurely ended, and there are lots and lots of characters left that I want and will never see any other way. And the basic truth is that I've always been more of a DC guy then a Marvel guy, so my heart leans that way. But there's a handful of Marvel characters that I really like that haven't been made, forcing me to take matters into my own hands. Foremost among them: Quasar.
Quasar is, I think, the most underrated character in the Marvel Universe. He managed to support his own series for some five years in the '90s. Written by the late, great Mark Gruenwald, the series peaked in the late teens to the mid-thirties, when it featured superb art by Greg Capullo (who then went on to become a terrible Todd McFarlane clone... sigh) and, briefly, Steve Lightle. But the series, never a big seller, suffered through inferior artists the rest of it's run, and Quasar himself drifted into the background of the Marvel Universe.

But I still like him. I'd long wanted a Quasar figure in some form, but he's never had the honor. So making him as a Minimate was always on my mind, but his classic costume is fairly unique, as seen here by Capullo (image courtesy of the Quantum Zone):

But he finally came together when Marvel wave 31 arrived. That's when two pieces for this guy were released: Captain Britain's hair (the perfect Quasar hair) and Mar-Vell's chest, and the First Apperance Angel 's head. Add Mary Marvel's arms (though Marty McFly's will do also), some Ocean Master wrist bands, the Sentry's cape, and Ultimate Spidey's crotch and legs, and you've got yourself a Quasar!
He's not perfect, unfortunately, because his chest symbol doesn't look quite like Mar-Vell's. My ultimate plan is to paint a C3 Alt Superman's cape blue, then use this decal here:

But he'll do for now. Oh, the energy blast from the second picture comes from an Iron Man 2 figure. Fits on the bracelet just right.

EDIT: I did, in fact, make that modification. Here's the updated Quasar; my apologies that the flash washed the decal out a bit:

Minimate Customs: Grendel

2010-11-01T23:24:00.005-04:00

Well, I've fallen tremendously behind at posting these. I was trying to go more or less chronologically, but now I think I'm just going to pick and choose my favorites. First up, one I just finished: Matt Wagner's Grendel.

Grendel's pretty simple; he's just black and white, after all. But there were some tricky things about this one. First off, in order to get his mask right, you need to use Deathstroke's, which is not easy to find any more (and I didn't really want to sacrifice mine). So I had to buy an extra Deathstroke, which ended up taking a while.

And then there's the mask detail, which can't simply be painted on (at least not by my shaky hand). I managed to put together a decal based on Wagner's existing art, but had no way to print it. Enter Minimate Factory guru Luke Porter, whom was kind enough to print this out as part of a trade we were making. He even sent me an extra, so I might end up making Grendel Prime one of these days.

Finally, here's my decal, for anyone out there that might want to give him a shot. The chest, by the way, comes from one of the Ghostbusters, and his arms come from Blackhawk. Enjoy!

Good Grief

2010-10-23T23:40:00.002-04:00

The only loss in baseball history more excruciating, I think, must have involved Charlie Brown. Seriously, what the fuck just happened?

I Made a Quiz-- MLB Game 7 Winning Pitchers

2010-10-21T14:27:00.002-04:00

In honor (though after last night, I don't know that I want to be honoring anything about baseball) of the MLB playoffs, I whipped up a little quiz: MLB postseason game 7 winning pitchers. This is a pretty hard quiz; I made it, and I think I'd do terribly on it. But it seemed like a fun idea. Hopefully, I'll be updating this quiz with the name "Cole Hamels" in a few days.

Can you name the winning pitcher for each game 7 in MLB postseason history? - sporcle

I've Been Called Out

2010-10-12T13:06:00.003-04:00

Yes, it's true: I picked the Minnesota Twins to reach the World Series. Which means I picked them to beat the Yankees. Which not only did they manage to not do, they managed to do so in the lamest way possible (non-Cincinnati Reds division). Yeah, this one's on me. I made this pick because I thought that the Twins had added some very nice players to the mix this year (JJ Hardy, Orlando Hudson, and my man Jim Thome) and had finally closed the talent gap with the Yankees. Plus, I thought (and still think) that the Yankees are not as strong as they were last year: their rotation remains a question mark after Sabathia (no matter how well Petite and Hughes handled the Twins), and they let go two of last year's heroes in Matsui and Damon. And Jeter officially sucks now, don't forget that.

But I knew the Twins were fucked shortly before game 2 began, when I was watching the TBS pregame, and Craig Sager reported all these little things the Twins were doing to deviate their routines. Because that said to me that they had let their failures against the Yankees into their heads, and that they had bought into all this Yankee mystique bullshit, and that they certainly weren't going to win that night, and probably wouldn't win the entire series.

After watching what's happened to the Twins, and the Reds, and the Braves, I can't help but wonder if the geniality of fans in places outside of the northeast is really for the best. I've read several things about Brooks Conrad, the Braves infielder whose defensive miscues greatly contributed to his team's elimination, and they talk about how supportive the fans are of him, and how they gave him a loud ovation when he pinch hit last night, and that's nice and all, but... dude made eight errors in seven games. You know that, if he were a Phillie, or a Yankee, or a Met, or a Red Sox, there'd be no gentle soothing ovation. Maybe in ten years we'd remember what we liked about this guy. But not now.

Things are just different here. Look, Donovan McNabb threw for over 300 yards and three touchdowns in a Super Bowl his team lost by three points, and people still talk about it as if it were one of the all-time worst big game performances. So perhaps there is something to this notion that playing in these places where trying your best just isn't good enough, because we can all try our best, but you're the professional, dammit. You ain't paid to try. Maybe that gives you the killer instinct needed to take advantage of your opponents mistakes, and the confident swagger that, sometimes, lets you win a game before it's even played.

Whatever. I just know I'm not picking against the Yankees again... until the Phillies get them, that is.

Well, it's not the Reds

2010-09-27T23:31:00.000-04:00

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's been a while. Working on some things, and should have some fun posts up soon. But I just wanted to jump in here, because a Sportscenter promo on Monday Night Football just now stuck in my craw. Stuart Scott, from the Soldier Field sideline, pops up to remind us to stay tuned for Sportscenter after the game where they'll tell us "which team just clinched their division... for the fourth straight year". Jaysus. If the answer's going to be so damn obvious, why ask the question?

This is the kind of thing that gets me yelling at the TV, which Hillary thinks is hysterical.

Oh yeah, it's the Phillies, by the way.

Commencing Quarterback Controversy in 3...2...

2010-09-13T08:51:00.002-04:00

...now.

Well, that was something, huh? The Kevin Kolb era got off to about the worst start imaginable: he sucked, got hurt, and his backup was great in rallying the team against a superior opponent. And now he gets to spend the season looking over his shoulder, and we all are going to wonder if Vick isn't the answer. The Eagles, at least offensively, didn't belong on the same field with the Green Bay Packers in the first half. Under Vick, they looked like a different team. It's a unique situation, in which the backup is not only more accomplished then the starter, but still in his prime. Kolb really has no window for growing pains. Not in this city, at least.

The defense looked good, though, all things considered; those things being often dealing with a short field due to poor special teams play, and having to be on the field every two minutes or so in the first half. But they got consistent pressure on Aaron Rogers without having to blitz on every play, which was a big problem last year, and forced him into several mistakes. But they slumped noticeably when Stewart Bradley went out, and I still think they need another cornerback. It's hard to read too much into this game, because the Packers are very, very good. Next week gets easier, against the Lions, but they won't be a pushover.

Oh, and Donovan McNabb is 1-0. He wasn't great, but good enough. The Cowboys sure don't look like a Super Bowl contender, though. Due to the quirky scheduling yesterday I was able to watch all four NFC East teams, and the division sure looks wide open. The Giants, at times, looked like the same group that fell apart last year, but to their credit they came out strong at halftime and ran over an inferior opponent. Competent quarterback play, in this case meaning NOT throwing three interceptions in the end zone, probably would have been enough to beat them, though. A lesson the Eagles certainly reinforced, and would do well to remember.

I Made a Quiz-- Titles Won at WrestleMania

2010-09-11T14:48:00.003-04:00

So I suppose by doing this I'm outing myself as a wrestling fan. Ah well. That's not as bad as when James did this (it's close, though). Anyway, this is a quiz of wrestlers that won a championship at WrestleMania. It's actually tougher then you might think, because some very prominent names never actually captured a title at WrestleMania (meaning they came in as the challenger and left as the champion). And some pretty obscure guys actually won multiple championships. I actually took this after I was done making it and almost missed a couple.

Titles Won at WrestleManina Quiz

The Football Post for which I Could Not Think of a Name

2010-09-07T15:08:00.004-04:00

For the past, I dunno, five years or so, I've made the same Superbowl prediction, Eagles vs. Chargers. I don't think that's going to happen this year-- but more because of the Chargers then the Eagles, honestly. I think this is a pretty wide open year, with my hunch being that a lot of the traditional powers will take a step back, and that we'll see some surprising teams. Of course, that's pretty much what happens every year, doesn't it? Anyway, here's my division picks, and maybe even a Super Bowl pick, if I decide on one by the end of my typing. Naturally, we'll start in the most important place:

NFC East: Eagles, Redskins, Cowboys, Giants

You may detect some homerism here, and some wishful thinking. Well, fuck you. I'm sure as hell not picking the Cowboys. But, honestly, I do think the Cowboys are going to struggle more then most. Yeah, they finally had a late season breakthrough last year. Bully for them. Now do it again.

A lot of people seem to think that the Giants' collapse was an aberration, but c'mon, it happened in week six. Week after week they went out still in control of their own playoff fate, and week after week they looked like garbage. The Redskins, on the other hand, were a lot better last year then their record. They outplayed at least three playoff teams, including the eventual champion, but were unable to seal the deal. With McNabb and Shanahan, that shouldn't be a problem this year.

As for the Eagles, let's just say this: they'll be the surprise team in the league this year; Kevin Kolb will be the breakout star; Stewart Bradley will be All-Pro; and Andy Reid will (again) be coach of the year. That seems like a fair and balance prediction, right?

NFC South: Falcons, Saints, Panthers, Bucs

The Saints had a storybook year last year, but they're due for a tumble. The Falcons will follow a typical football pattern: breakout playoff year, followed by regression the next year, followed by a resurgence as a legit Super Bowl contender. The Panthers look to be slightly less shitty then the Bucs, so they'll be third. Advice to Bucs fan Dave Miller: definitely don't get the Sunday Ticket this year.

NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Lions, Bears

Everybody else is on the Packers bandwagon, so why not me? It would be lovely to see Brett Favre return just to see Aaron Rogers and co. leapfrog him. Heck, the Vikings have the smell of desperate team throwing everything against the wall to win, and imploding. Of course, so do the Bears. I think the Lions are headed in the right direction, and will be a pleasant surprise, and will even pass Chicago.

NFC West: 49ers, Seahawks, Cardinals, Rams

Yeah, the dogshit division (boy, I'm cursing a lot today, aren't I?). San Francisco looks to finally be legit again, but we've been fooled by them before. But I'm rooting for Mike Singletary, so they get the benefit of the doubt. Besides, everyone else will be somewhere between mediocre and terrible. The Cardinals are looking to replace Kurt Warner with the guy that couldn't hold down the Browns' job. The Browns. The Seahawks are in transition, so no one knows what to expect from them, but probably not much. And I will be forever mystified why Steve Spagnuolo, one of the hottest head coaching prospects after the Giants' Super Bowl year, decided to take the Rams job. Hope he gets another shot after he's fired for going 2-14 again.

AFC East: Patriots, Dolphins, Jets, Bills

I honestly do not like any team in this division this year. The Jets seem to me to be headed for a comeuppance. They are at act one of a Will Ferrell movie, where their hubris leads to their undoing. Next year's the year they come back humbler, wiser, better. The Patriots are definitely on the way down, but I guess there's enough left in the tank for another division title. I dunno. They benefited for years from the weakness around them, and they don't have that luxury any more. The Dolphins could definitely sneak back in, like they did two years ago, but I'm not big on them either. I suppose I should root for them, considering that Chad Henne is also an alum of Wilson High School.

Are the Buffalo Bills still in the NFL? They are, in the immortal words of Ned Flanders, the NFL's answer to a question no one asked.

AFC South: Texans, Colts, Titans, Jaguars

Yeah, I think this is the year the Texans finally break through, and that the Colts begin to regress. Peyton Manning absolutely carried them last year, in a way I've never seen before, and I just don't think he can do that again. Eventually, Jim Cauldwell's going to have to prove if he's an elite coach or not. I'll say not. I'm tempted to predict that the Titans will also jump over them, but I won't go that far. Maybe next year. At least they don't have to worry about the Jags, the NFL's...er.... answer to a question....

AFC North: Ravens, Steelers, Browns, Bengals

Also an interesting division. I think the Ravens are the real deal, and that Joe Flacco and Ray Rice are ready to take the next step (and I love John Harbaugh). The secondary is worrysome, though. It's very difficult to predict where the Steelers will end up, because even with Roethlesberger playing at the highest levels of his career, they still collapsed last year. I've never been a big Troy Polamalu guy, but I guess he really does make all the difference. As for last year's division champ, how can a team add both Pacman Jones and Terrell Owens and not implode? They made the playoffs because they went 6-0 in their division last year; that won't happen again. I like the direction the Browns are heading in; I think Jake Delhomme will provide them with competent quarterbacking, which will be enough to get them out of the basement.

AFC West: Chargers, Raiders, Broncos, Chiefs

The Chargers have had such a ridiculous advantage over the other elite teams of the NFL in terms of division foes over the last few years it's made us all overvalue them. No more. They'll still win the division, but not as handily. I seriously expect the Raiders to give them quite a run. I've always liked Jason Campbell, and think he got a bit of a raw deal in Washington. The Broncos will continue to regress, sadly for Brian Dawkins. The Chiefs are not the NFL's answer to a question nobody asked, but only because that's the Bills and the Jaguars.

So there you go. As for the playoffs, lets go with the Eagles, Falcons, Packers, Niners, Saints and Redskins in the NFC, and the Patriots, Titans, Ravens, Chargers, Colts, and Steelers in the AFC. And in the Super Bowl, how about the Ravens and... hmmm... let's see here... oh yeah, the Philadelphia freakin' Eagles. Can you guess who I like to win that game?

Good Lord, it's 9/02/10

2010-09-02T13:25:00.004-04:00

Somehow, I don't feel like I can just let this day go by without saying something.

I was of the same graduating class as the 90210 kids; I never watched much in high school, but I did watch a good bit in college. My crazy friend Mike Daly and I used to MST-it, and later my roommates and I would often watch with some of the girls in our social circle. A guilty pleasure, I suppose, though never as much campy fun as Melrose Place. Bad shows just aren't bad in quite the right way anymore. I miss that.

A few memories spring up: The Flaming Lips playing the Peach Pit After Dark, after which my eternal nemesis Steve Sanders remarked something like "I don't know much about 'alternative music [in my mind, he did air quotes here], but those guys rocked!"; the Real World parody episode, where Tori Spelling uses the word "proletariat"; wishing I could have a recurring cameo as the guy who walks up to Steve Sanders and punches him in the face; once convincing a roommate who was late coming home that one of the minor cast members had been killed off. Had him going pretty good.

...And that's about it. Really, 90210 was left behind by Melrose Place, and even while it was still airing felt a little desperate to recapture it's early notoriety. But on this day let's all raise our glasses to Aaron Spelling, most assuredly rotting in the circle of Hell reserved for the creatively bankrupt.

I Made a Quiz-- Marvel Minimates (Part 1)

2010-08-28T23:27:00.003-04:00

Yep, another one. This one's a lot longer, and probably even harder if you don't know anything about Marvel Comics, not to mention Minimates. But I wanted to do it, so here you go. "Part 1" is because you can only have 200 answers in a Sporcle quiz, and there have been a lot more then 200 Marvel Minimates. So part 2 will follow sometime soon.

Can you name the Marvel Minimates (part 1)--Sporcle quiz

EDIT: Finished Part 2. Looks like there's going to have to be a Part 3. Dammit.

Can you name the Marvel Minimates (part 2)--Sporcle quiz

I Made a Quiz-- Superhero Pets

2010-08-27T23:16:00.001-04:00

I've been fooling around with the quiz site Sporcle a lot recently; there are quizzes in all sorts of different categories. You would be surprised how much time you can waste here. Or perhaps you wouldn't. Anyway, I decided to try my hand at a quiz. A pretty simple one, but hopefully challenging and fun: superhero pets! I encourage you to give it a shot, and I will hopefully find the time to come up with a few more of these.

Can you name the superhero pets? - sporcle

Brett Favre is a Teenage Girl

2010-08-19T12:36:00.003-04:00

Well, looks like my prediction that Brett Favre wasn't really retiring was on the money. Golf clap for me. Honestly, I don't think anyone was particularly fooled this time, save perhaps the Minnesota Vikings. What's amazing to me is that, this time around, it took not only a personal visit from head coach Brad Childress, but the Vikings had to dispatch three of his teammates to Louisiana to bring him back. What, is he afraid to fly by himself? Did they have to hold his hand on the plane, gently stroking his grey beard while they whispered how much they love him? Did Farve rest his head on Steve Hutchinson's shoulder?

This is just sad now. I fully believe that Favre created all this drama because he didn't feel like he was getting enough attention, because everyone just assumed he'd be back. So he pouted and said "well, maybe I won't come back. After all, my ankle still hurts. Really really bad". So his team had to make a big deal about it, and all the reporters had to file Brett Favre stories until he felt loved enough. Childress even picked him up at the airport! I hope he at least brought one of those "B.Farve" signs.

Apologies to teenage girls for the comparison. And I swear, I swear, I will never write about Brett Favre again.

A Pointless Thought

2010-08-19T12:03:00.003-04:00

Do you think Danica McKellar really hates Danica Patrick? I mean, she used to have the name Danica all to herself. She was a one name celebrity, like Madonna. And then along comes this race car chick, who's not even as cute, and all of a sudden she's Danica, and she's a one name celebrity, and it's like Danica McKellar never even existed, and Danica Patrick never even wins any races! That would make me mad.

Banes of My Existence: Kevin Smith

2010-08-16T13:57:00.007-04:00

I suppose it was inevitable that something would set me off to rant about Kevin Smith here. It's probably a surprise it's taken this long; after all, I've been ranting about him for years. It's fair to say that I hate his work, in that I've hated every movie of his I've ever seen or comic book that I've ever read. I've often wondered if I'd hate him personally if our paths were ever to cross. He seems like a nice enough fellow. We'd certainly have plenty to talk about. I also wonder if it's possible to be friends with someone if you despise their work; I guess it's like dating a girl even though you think she's a twit. And I did once chase after a girl that thought there should be a Constitutional amendment passed requiring every American to see Pearl Harbor. She, though, was a helluva lot hotter then Kevin Smith.

I'm going to go on a quick tangent (or continue the tangent) here and tell a story about my friend Travis. He was talking to some girl once at a party, and she was telling him about her boyfriend, and how they have such a great connection, like all the same things, ect. And she said something like "he likes ice cream and puppies, just like me!" And Travis, bless him, told her how stupid that was, because every body likes ice cream and puppies. And she got mad at him and, I think, tossed his hat in the pool. But what impressed me was that Travis did something that men in our twenties never do, which is call out a girl we're hoping to pick up on something inane she said. I have the utmost respect for him for that.

I want to make one thing clear here: I'm not one of those Johnny-come-lately Kevin Smith haters. I've always hated his work. No, I did not think Clerks was funny, or keenly observant, and I was, in fact, working at a convenience store at the time. Mallrats I did not see, but I did see Chasing Amy, oh so many times. I was working at the Ritz Five in Philly, the art house chain, and Chasing Amy must have played there for about seven years. By the end of its' run I couldn't even bring myself to walk into the theater while it was playing. I've gone around and around with people on this, but what I always come back to in criticizing the film is that it is so ineptly made. Let me give you an example: there's a scene at the end of the movie where Jason Lee is talking to a fan at a comic book convention. The scene basically cuts between shots of the two of them, with the fan's monologue running uninterrupted between shots. Except that the background audio is different between each shot. This might not seem like a big deal; but, for a guy making his third film, it's inexcusable.

And then there's Dogma, the last Kevin Smith film I've ever seen. Against my better judgment, I allowed my brother to talk me into watching it, with promises that it was a very smart deconstruction of organized religion. No, it is not. It's a shambles of a film, confirming that Smith still, after now four feature films, does not understand the first thing about storytelling, and has no ability as a director to illicit a compelling performance from an actor. So after that I swore that I'd never give the guy another chance, and that was it. And, really, it hasn't been that hard to avoid him. Sure, the Jay and Silent Bob movie *shudder* was a hit, but Jersey Girl pretty much exposed his limitations, and he's never really recovered. Certainly, the bloom is off the Kevin Smith: filmmaker rose.

And then... there's comics. I guess that, if Kevin Smith is a terrible filmmaker, he's at least only a very bad comic book writer. His dialogue doesn't read quite so stilted as it sounds coming out of an actor's mouth. And he certainly knows comics, unlike some of the other Hollywood bigshots that slum it up for Marvel, DC or Image now and then. I certainly feel, as a comics fan, that we're expected to be thrilled when even the most minor of celebrities does comics, because even the most minor of celebrities is bigger then anyone in comics. So Seth Green's comic is about frat boys with super powers? Who cares, it's by Seth Green! From Austin Powers!

You get the idea. Smith, at least, really did seem to be committed to being a part of the comics industry-- at first. He did successfully relaunch both Daredevil and Green Arrow, though, so I suppose that's something, even if the former did result in the death of a longtime supporting character at the hands of a minor villain, and the plot of the latter revolved around a grandfather raping his grandson. Yes, you read that right.

But his own inability to complete projects soon destroyed his reputation. There was his Spider Man/ Black Cat mini- series that had a literal wait of years between issues. Then there was the Daredevil mini- series that only saw one issue released before Smith just stopped writing it (that one issue, by the way, is among the worst comics I've ever read). And that, really, was it, until DC Comics decided a few years ago to cash in on whatever remaining cred Smith's name has by letting the guy write some Batman. And the first series, Cacophony, was relatively well received.
Well enough, at least, for Smith to do a sequel, The Widening Gyre, originally intended for six issues, but now apparently to be twelve.

And this, finally, is what brings me here today. Because, frankly, Smith had fallen so far off my radar that I was only vaguely aware this thing was even coming out. But this review here really does a nice job bringing me up to speed. And, please, go read it for yourself, because I really don't want to spoil any of the awesome, awesome twists described there. You should have the same thrill of discovery I did when you learn that Kevin Smith had Batman tell a story about... no, no, see for yourself.

But I would really like to share with you a quote from this interview with Smith, that I think explains a lot: " I’m not telling you anything new…I’m far more creative now, you know. I’ve been writing this Batman: The Widening Gyre miniseries, and I’m stoned all the time when I’m writing it. And, I swear, I’ll write it, and then, it’s not so much blackout, but forget, so much so that the next morning, I go to read what I wrote, and it’s, like, I’m that fuckin’ little cobbler and elves came and fuckin' wrote it in the night, because I’m, like, "This is better than anything I’ve ever written before." I mean, like, I’ve done comics, but this is way better."

That really wraps it up nicely, doesn't it?

The Miami Heat are the Biggest Scumbags in Sports

2010-08-12T22:52:00.004-04:00

You all remember the Miami Heat, right? NBA team that added superstar Chris Bosh and superduperstar LeBron James to Dwayne Wade, creating a superteam and creating a mockery of any ideas of competitive balance? Sure you do. Well, as you can imagine, they've become a hot ticket in Miami, no pun intended. So hot, in fact, that they've sold out every ticket for every game this season. So how do you reward that hard-working sales staff? Bonus, right? Well, if you're the Miami Heat, you fire the entire sales roster.

Just...wow. Of all the low, scummy things to do. You spend some $300 million on three men, then fire a staff of thirty who, according to spokesperson Lorrie-Ann Diaz, were working so hard "[w]e couldn't get them to go home!" Well, you found a way, Lorrie-Ann!

As if you needed another reason to dislike the Heat. First, they play in Miami, one of the worst cities in the world. And then there's the stupid nickname. Then comes the most dislikable power trio this side of classic rock radio, and now this. If I owned one of the other franchises in town, like say the Marlins, I'd hire all these guys, saying something like "let's see them bring that energy to the Marlins boxoffice!" And sure, they wouldn't be bringing James, but it's a publicity stunt! Not to mention the right thing to do.

God, what happens if the Lakers and the Heat meet in the finals last year. What do you root for? Nuclear winter?

The Tale of Todd

2010-08-04T10:09:00.015-04:00

I spent an hour or so the other day reading this eyewitness account by Comics Buyers Guide Senior Editor Maggie Thompson on the most recent court case involving Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane. It's pretty entertaining. Both Gaiman and McFarlane take the stand; my favorite part is probably here, at the end of Gaiman's lengthy testimony, where he denies that comics have a history of scantily- clad women. I mean, I understand that you don't want to give Todd's lawyers anything, Neil, but come on.

This trial, though, is really just an extension of the seminal 2002 trial between the two. To understand that trial, you really have to go back to 1992, when McFarlane tapped Gaiman to write the issue of Spawn you see to your left. McFarlane, along with several other top-selling comics artists of the day, had just left Marvel (and the Spider-Man title they created specifically to keep him happy) to form Image Comics. There, the artists would be unfettered by the restrictions of Big Brother Publisher, free to create comics that... were distinctly similar to the comics they'd created for Big Brother Publisher. Huh. Well, at least McFarlane's Spawn was somewhat different from Spider-Man. He wore a cape, after all.

Most of the Image guys, and McFarlane in particular, soon suffered from a fan backlash when it was noticed that their comics were really really poorly written. Todd, at least, came up with a novel strategy to rebut this claim: hire the very best writers in comics to each write an issue of Spawn. Gaiman joined Alan Moore, Dave Sim, and Frank Miller in writing Spawn #s 8-11. If you're wondering, they aren't particularly good comics, though they are a step up on the average issue of Spawn at the time.

Gaiman summarized the genesis of his issue quite well in his recent testimony. Essentially given no parameters by McFarlane, Gaiman decided that, if Spawn is a warrior of hell, he must have an opposite number from heaven. So Gaiman created Angela, a female warrior angel babe, and member of a host of female warrior angel babes. Furthermore, to establish her as a killer of Spawns, he created a past Spawn for her to, well, kill; he became known colloquially as Medieval Spawn. Gaiman later returned to Angela for a three issue mini-series, which introduced more female warrior angel babes.

All of this is fine and good, until Gaiman and McFarlane have a falling out. For which there are several reasons, but for our purposes now you only need to know that Gaiman became upset that McFarlane reprinted his issue of Spawn without paying Gaiman royalties, and turned both Angela and Medieval Spawn into action figures, also without compensation. Gaiman claimed he was co-creator of the characters, McFarlane claimed it was work-for-hire, they went to trial, and Gaiman won. At least, that's the 10-cent version.

I've always found it ironic that McFarlane, whom had made grandiose claims of being "emancipated" when he left Marvel, had been so willing to screw over another creator. In fact, the issue of Spawn immediately following Gaiman's, written by Cerebus creator and noted self-publishing iconoclast Sim, is a ham-handed allegory about the evils of Big Brother Publishers, and the freedom that Sim, McFarlane, and their creations were now afforded. It seems, though, in McFarlane's mind at least, that freedom didn't extend to those he hired.

The 2010 trial stems from the findings of the 2002 trial, with Gaiman now suing McFarlane over characters he considers derivative of those from Spawn #9. Two of them seem pretty straightforward, to my eyes: they are female warrior angel babes of the same host as Angela, which everyone agrees was Neil Gaiman's idea, and not Todd McFarlane's. The defense's retort? Oh, they're entirely different... because they've got different haircuts, and their skimpy armor is different from Angela's skimpy armor, and look, this one uses a gun! Um, yeah. Point (or two points, as it's two characters) for Gaiman.

The other claim is far more interesting, involving the character (and title) known as Dark Ages Spawn. This is a series from 2001 set in the Crusades, and featuring a knight tricked into becoming an agent of hell, who still fights to retain his nobility. Sound familiar? It did to Gaiman, who claims that Dark Ages Spawn is just Medieval Spawn by another name. To refute this claim, Dark Ages Spawn writer/creator Brian Holguin took the stand. He stated, basically, that he'd been only midly aware of the earlier character, did not have him in mind at all when creating his character, and that Todd had just told him to "come up with something cool" and he'd hit upon the Crusades theme on his own. Which all seems plausible enough. You have to wonder, though, if McFarlane wasn't just trying to stick it to Gaiman by tweaking one of the characters they'd been feuding (and would later go to court) over. On the other hand, considering that McFarlane at this time still believed that he owned the character outright, it wouldn't make sense not to just call him Medieval Spawn and attempt to cash in on whatever cachet the earlier character possessed. It's certainly conceivable that McFarlane didn't put two and two together and realize that he already had a Spawn running around that was a knight from the Crusades; after all he is the guy that "...couldn't even keep track of how many spikes were on the costume."

That was not an argument that worked for the judge, as she found for Gaiman in all counts, just as the judge in 2002 had done. She did not buy the argument that McFarlane was unaware of the similarities between Medieval and Dark Ages Spawn; or, perhaps more appropriately, that he should have been aware of them, which in the eyes of the justice system is the same thing. I love how, in her decision, she offers several interesting and plausible variations on the Spawn character that McFarlane has not considered. Are you a frustrated wannabe comic book writer, Judge Barbara Crabb?

McFarlane's detractors (of which there are many) look at Neil as a hero that finally called out the bully and won. Meanwhile, Todd's fans (of which there are also many) think the whole thing is preposterous, because Gaiman was just playing in Todd's sandbox (ugh, I hate that term), and anyway, the whole thing was clearly work for hire, even if there wasn't a contract explicitly stating so. The truth, of course, is probably somewhere in between. Gaiman is clearly at least the co-creator of Medieval Spawn and Angela, in that they would not exist today were he not there to think them up. Would Todd (or somebody) have come up with something else? Probably, but legally that doesn't really matter. At the same time, I do think that the working situation for these hired gun writers was always intended to be work-for-hire, and Gaiman is taking advantage of McFarlane's lack of early business sense in clearly defining terms. But that's Todd's problem, not Neil's, and while this latter trial does feel like piling on (particularly since Gaiman doesn't even care about the profits he's to receive, and will donate them to charity), it's certainly legally justified.

One thing we can all agree on, I think is this: Todd McFarlane has the absolute worst track record when it comes to court rooms. He's now 0-3 in big time court cases, with these two joining the fairly ridiculous Tony Twist case. McFarlane, a big NHL fan, named a mafia don after Twist, a notorious goon. Twist, he of 10 career goals and 1121 career penalty minutes, sued on the grounds that his character had been defamed and his marketability hurt. Actually, as I research this, he's actually 0-4, because the there were actually two lawsuits lost to Twist; the first one was thrown out by the judge after the jury awarded Twist $24.5 million; the second case, in which Twist was awarded $15 million, was upheld on appeal. The two eventually settled for $5 million, with McFarlane's company being driven into bankruptcy.

Litigation, unfortunately, is a large part of Todd McFarlane's legacy, as are toys, Korn videos, and home run balls-- pretty much anything but comics. McFarlane hasn't drawn Spawn regularly in over a decade; his last few attempts at a comeback have resulted in painfully missed deadlines. It's been suggested that comics were never Todd's passion; while I can't speak to that, he's certainly marginalized himself in an industry he once ruled. And that's a shame, because McFarlane definitely brought something to the table back in his day. He legitimately reinvigorated Spider-Man; his work, vibrant and energetic, was exactly how a teenage boy would draw a comic book. I always felt that McFarlane lost his edge when his work became too slick and polished. Still, at least it was work. What does he have now? Not Angela, Medieval Spawn, or any related characters, that's for sure.

This Time for Real, I'm Sure

2010-08-03T15:51:00.003-04:00

Break out the tractor, Deanna, because Brett Farve may actually be retiring now after all. Seems his ankle isn't responding well to treatment after surgery, so that might be it. Time to hang 'em up. Which means his ranch will look great this year, because, as we all know by now, Brett Farve has two choices in life: play football or yardwork. There will be no hobbies for him, no taking up golf, no business ventures, no cushy commentator's gig, no working on There's Something About Mary 2: Electric Squequel.

There's been no real chatter about Farve this offseason, because everybody that cares just assumes he's going to play at this point. And, after playing so well last year and coming up so short of the Super Bowl, there's no reason to expect otherwise. Which is why it would make sense for him to actually retire now, when nobody expects it. Because that's Brett Farve for you: just when you think he'll zig, he zags; just when you think you know the answer, he changes the question.

Of course, even if this is really it, it won't be really it. Because in about week 4 or 5, his ankle will be feeling better, so he'll consider a comeback. Or, next season, he'll feel like he's in the best shape of his life, so he'll consider a comeback. And on and on. I feel kind of stupid even writing about this now, it's such a foregone conclusion. We've got at least two more years of waffling from Farve to which to look forward.

Why? Because a quick look at his career records in the AP article shows that he's got a good shot at winning 200 games as an NFL starter, which is pretty extraordinary. He's at 181 now, and if the Vikings remain among the NFL's better teams, he should get there. This year is a foregone conclusion, because he'll move his touchdown total above 500 and his yardage total above 70,000. Why would he leave those milestones on the table?

Oh, I know, because he doesn't care about numbers. Athletes never do, right? It's the rest of us that get hung up on them. The fans. The rabble. We care about the records, not them. They just want to play the game to the best of their ability, God willing. Have a little fun out there. And all that.

Anyway. Tune in to this blog for more exclusive coverage as this story develops.

Top Five Most Hated Sports Franchises

2010-07-28T21:46:00.004-04:00

Sports Illustrated just published a list of the 25 most hated teams in sports history, and that reminded me of my own little mental list, composed as the Lakers and Celtics were sucking all the joy out of the NBA playoffs. A Lakers/ Celtics finals might have been great for the NBA, but to me it just meant that we'd have to suffer between one of those two teams winning a championship again, certainly not something to embrace. Now, I don't hate the Celtics, just dislike them, so I suppose I was pulling for them. But it was a tepid support, kind of like accepting Russia as an ally against Nazi Germany. Sometimes, the fight against evil makes for strange bedfellows.

There's really nothing worse as a sports fan then watching a team you truly despise march towards a championship. I'm sure that every Red Sox fan will tell you that the Curse of the Bambino years were made all the worse by watching the Yankees win some two dozen championships at the time. Yet, somehow, the Red Sox 2004 championship, seeing as it included the Sox vaulting over the Yankees in about the most humbling way possible, somehow seems to even things up. Yankees fans won't admit it, but I think they'd trade at least, oh, five or ten of those titles to get that one back. And this is something Sox fans don't get: to the rest of us, now, you guys are even. That was it, you slayed the dragon. You're not the good guys against the Evil Empire any more; you're both Evil Empires now.

Anyway, back to the SI list for a moment. It's a decent list, though it seems like they, for the most part, chose the 25 most hated franchises (or colleges, or countries, or whatever) and chose their most hated teams. I don't, for example, hate the '92 Dallas Cowboys any less then I do the '93 or '95 Cowboys that also won the Super Bowl, or, for that matter, the 2009 Cowboys. Well, maybe a little bit more. Plus, in the interest of being inclusive, there's things like the 1976 East German women's Olympic swim team, for whom I suspect the venom has mostly faded. There's even an honorable mention for an America's Cup sailing team. But not one Lakers or Celtics team. Nor the Lawrence Phillips-era Nebraska Cornhuskers. Hell, how about the 2010 French World Cup team, that was seemingly reviled by even the members of the 2010 French World Cup team? Now that's hatred.

So while there may be high spots in hatred for certain teams, and there are certain, otherwise harmless franchises that have the misfortune of assembling a truly despicable team (the 2000-01 Trail Blazers is a great call), I think it's really the year-in, year-out hatreds that stick with us. My list, of course, is biased from the perspective of a Philadelphia sports fan. There are teams on here (well, one team) that the average fan probably doesn't hate. Conversely, there are several other teams, such as the aforementioned Celtics, not to mention the Yankees, Red Sox, Steelers, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and Duke Blue Devils that just don't raise my ire like they do others, though I fully accede to them being eminently hatable (the Blue Devils, I must note, get a pass because I married into the family of a graduate). I encourage you to make your own list!

1. Dallas Cowboys. Oh hell yes. If you're a sports fan from outside the southwest, and you don't hate the Cowboys, there's just something wrong with you. They are, without a doubt, the most despicable organization in the Western Hemisphere not named the Tea Party. Though, let's face it, a lot of Tea Party members are probably Dallas Cowboy fans. I hate the Cowboys so much that, when it looked like they were heading back to the Super Bowl in 2007, I found myself desperately rooting for anyone to beat them, even the Giants. Only a team like the Cowboys can inspire mortal enemies to put aside their differences for the greater good. Oh, and don't even get me started about Tony Romo. I want to get some sleep tonight.

2. Los Angeles Lakers. I'm honestly a little surprised that they placed so high on my list, because I care so little for basketball in general and the NBA in particular that it seems odd to so hate an NBA team. Perhaps it's just the glow of their second straight championship, and the public redemption of Kobe Bryant, but the fact is that the Lakers get me stirred up more then just about anyone else these days. My dislike of them stems from the 2000-01, when they cruised through the Western Conference playoffs without loosing a game to meet the Sixers, whom were pretty beaten up by this point. I will maintain to my dying day that the Sixers would have won that series had the Lakers been even remotely challenged at any point along the way to the finals and weren't fresh as daisies. But whatever. Most of my hatred, really, is for Kobe, whom I never did like, but c'mon. He's a rapist. We all know it. He should be in jail right now, not staring back at me with come-hither eyes. You're still a scumbag, Kobe, no matter how many rings you have.

3. Atlanta Braves. This is a bit of a weird one, that I know most people don't share. It comes, mostly, from watching the Braves dominate the NL East for 14 straight years. But it also comes from their horrible, milquetoast fans, that can barely sell out a playoff game, and from years of watching excruciating Braves broadcasts on TBS. Oh, and that !@#$ tomahawk chop. Oddly, they've had several players over the years that I've liked, especially the big three of Greg Maddox, Tom Glavine, and John Smolz, but also guys like Ron Gant and Fred McGriff. But I still can't stand them. This year, I've found my anti-Braves passions renewed once again, particularly on the day they came back from a seven-run deficit in the ninth inning to beat the Reds, punctuated by a game winning grand slam. I think we were all happier when the Braves were also-rans, don't you?

4. New York Giants. My hatred of them has tempered a bit recently, since several of the players that most especially struck a nerve- Strahan, Shokey, Barber- are gone. They do still have Eli Manning, though, so there's that. For a couple years there, when the Cowboys were down and the Giants were peaking, I honestly thought I hated the Giants more. But I can see now that I was mistaken. I can't believe that Eli Manning is a Super Bowl winning quarterback and Donovan McNabb is not, though.

4. New York Mets. This might be a bit stronger if the Mets hadn't embarrassingly collapsed several times of the last few years, to the benefit of the Phillies. It's hard to hate a team when they pratfall into a pie repeatedly. But they are the Mets, our biggest rival, so I can't not hate them. And that 1986 team really was a bunch of scumbags. Not that the 1993 Phillies weren't....

Mad Men Returns

2010-07-26T23:54:00.004-04:00

"Mad Men" is a show I like quite a bit, but at the same time think is vastly overrated. While the first season really was quite excellent, the two subsequent seasons have been far less compelling. Much like stylistic forebearer "The Sopranos" (not to mention later issues of The Sandman, in my opinion not widely shared), the show seems to be already resting on its' laurels, having established a standard of impeccable, if sometimes dull, storytelling sure to win awards and accolades.

Last night's episode felt like more of a return to form, at least for one episode. Though last season was often quite tedious (the nadir, in my mind, came in the episode in which the most notable thing was that Pete Campbell and his wife danced the Charleston), it did change the dynamics at both work and home for Don Draper. This was our first chance to dip our toes into the new status quos, and it was mostly successful. Of course, it helps that at least half the episode went by before we saw Betty Draper. She's long been the show's albatross, a vain, vapid nitwit who is impossible to root for even when she's in the right. At least the show finally disposed of the neverending "will she or won't she?" teases that Betty might have an affair by having her have an affair

Of course, my new favorite character to ever appear on "Mad Men is seemingly Henry's mother, who referred to Betty as "Dirt". I hope this means we're not supposed to try and like Betty any more. I still can't decide if January Jones is just a terrible, lifeless actress, or if that's actually part of the performance. Anyway, I'm all for hating on Betty, so keep that coming. I want at least one scathing insult directed at Betty per episode (per scene if possible).

One last thing: It's a really odd tonal shift to go from watching "True Blood" at 9 to "Mad Men" at 10. And when was the last time anyone actually drank any True Blood anyway?

The San Diego Stabbing

2010-07-26T09:34:00.003-04:00

Well. This was surprising. A fight at a panel at the San Diego Comic Con ends in one man stabbing the other in the eye with a pen. Looking at the pictures of the assailant being led away in handcuffs made me sad; no one expects their day at a convention to end in a jail cell. Of course, no one expects their day to end with a pen in the eye, either, so I suppose my sympathy should be tempered.

Not to excuse either party in this situation, as violence is obviously not called for, but the convention organizers share a large part of the responsibility here. The hullabaloo about Comic Con panels has clearly gotten out of hand, and little has been done to adjust. At my one and only San Diego Comic Con, I ended up avoiding the panels almost entirely because Hall H, where the panels are held, was chaos. Lines for the big panels are so long, with people waiting in line all day for afternoon panels, that it seemed pointless. I don't really understand this need to attend a panel, to the point that you'd pay whatever the cost of tickets, transportation, and accommodations only to spend a day at the con sitting in a hallway.

One thing San Diego doesn't do that most other major cons do is clear the convention halls after each panel. This has lead to people sitting all day in convention halls, "attending" panels for which they have no interest, waiting for their panel later that afternoon. And that, apparently, was the cause of the dispute this year, and it's surprising, really, that there hasn't been more instances of violence.

This is a monster of the Con's creation. They've spent so much time building San Diego as the event of the year for all things nerd, and the panels as the must-attend for "true" fans of your given property, that people have become desperate to be in the room. And it gets worse every year, even though every panel is extensively covered from several sites, and video of most panels eventually makes it online. Is the need to ask Joe Quesada a question really that great?

The Beat this morning has several suggestions for alleviating the problem. I agree with most of them, but I think the idea of distributing tickets/collectible wrist bands for the panels will just cause more chaos. You'd just be shifting the problem, not solving it, and by creating a new "must-have" collectible, possibly adding on. I think, first off, San Diego has to start clearing out the panel rooms immediately. Also, it's time to start streaming the panels online, and perhaps even take online questions during the panel. Perhaps, if it's clear to all that you'll still be able to participate in the panels even if you're not in the room, some tension will be alleviated.

There's been a lot of talk over the last few years about the con leaving San Diego, with the thought being that the con has outgrown the hall. I wonder if this incident will be the tipping point that expedites the process. That Harry Potter fan may just have stabbed the Comic Con out of San Diego.

Banes of My Existence: Sheryl Crow

2010-07-24T13:55:00.006-04:00

So we're in a hotel right now, upstate for my sister-in-law's wedding, and yesterday I caught a little bit of Good Morning America. Just in time to see Sheryl Crow perform her crappy new song. Lucky me! Her performance was, even by the standards of the Good Morning America Summer Concert Series, lame. See for yourself:

EDIT: Okay, that's just the interview. Can't seem to find the performance. Perhaps that's just as well.

I have a long history with accidentally stumbling across Sheryl Crow performances. I remember several years ago watching a Pittsburg Steelers game (either a playoff game or the opening of Heinz Field, can't remember which) and she was the halftime entertainment. At the time, I don't think she'd done anything significant in years (not even Lance Armstrong... badumbump), so I was surprised to see her. She was debuting a new song, which I thought was poor even by her standards... which was, of course "Soak Up the Sun", which ended up being arguably her biggest hit. My opinion often has that effect.

I suppose she's not terrible; she's just so... lame. It's like a word association game. The name "Sheryl Crow" just screams mediocrity passing for something bigger. Like, she's hot, but she's no Shania Twain. And her music's awful, but she's no Shania Twain. This performance yesterday really sums up the Sheryl Crow experience well. The song's entirely unmemorable, her performance bland, the crowd only remotely interested. I imagine a Sheryl Crow concert to be dull beyond belief; even Celine Dion can connect with a crowd.

To balance this out, here's a couple videos from the woman Sheryl Crow desperately wishes she was (though she's probably sold ten times as many records) Neko Case.

The Ultimate Workout Video

2010-07-24T12:58:00.002-04:00

I know that most regular readers of this blog are fitness nuts, so I'm pleased to share what (I think you'll agree) is the most comprehensive, challenging workout you'll find. WARNING: this is intense. Don't attempt if you're a wuss...DAVE. This blog absolves itself of all responsibility for any injuries that may occur, kind of like when you leave something in a taxi.

Things That Make You Go Hurrm

2010-07-22T22:45:00.006-04:00

A couple months ago, comics rumor monger Rich Johnston reported that DC Comics, and perhaps more specifically parent company Warners, was exploring ways to expand Watchmen-- sequels, prequels, you name it. And this of course caused quite a kerfluffle, and this of course led to then-editorial director (and now co-publisher) Dan Didio to deny that DC would ever do anything of the sort. "Shocked, I am SHOCKED at this outrageous insinuation", I believe he was heard to say. And I meant to blog about it, and then I didn't, and it all went away.

Until this week, when right before Comic Con, Wired released a teaser for an upcoming interview with Alan Moore in which he claims that DC offered him back the rights to Watchmen in exchange for new stories. And he, of course, turned them down, because basically the characters are dead to him. So that was it, right? DC asked, Moore said go fuck yourselves, and we all went on with our lives. Well, here's what now-copublisher Didio told Comic Book Resources yesterday:

"[T]he one thing that we've been saying for a while is that 'Watchmen' is truly one of the premier projects out there, and if we were ever to proceed with [a sequel] the most logical place to start would be with Alan and Dave. For me, it's one of those things that's still one of the crown jewels in comics, and if you ever wanted to approach it, you'd have to do it in that manner – making sure the best talent available and possible was working on it."

So, obviously, they're doing it.

Which, hey, is their right, since they own the characters. And Moore did essentially base the Watchmen off preexisting characters, so there's that. And... it's still pretty shitty.

Thing is, to DC/Warners, Watchmen isn't just a book anymore, it's a tentpole franchise (that's the kind of thing they like to say) sitting around collecting dust because some asshole freak writer got his feelings hurt 20 years ago. And that must seem pretty insane to them. I mean, the book sold a million copies last year alone. A million copies. They'd be stupid not to make sequels! And the only thing stopping them is a guy that doesn't even work for the company any more?

The biggest- perhaps only- drawback for DC will be to find anyone willing to step over Moore's corpse and risk career suicide for this. Because "best talent available" means a lot of things, but if it's "in Alan Moore's league", well, there's basically Neil Gaiman, and he sure as hell isn't going to do it. Then there's the generation of British writers that followed in Moore's footsteps-- Morrison, Ellis, Ennis, ect. On the one hand, they might be intrigued to tackle such a daunting challenge; on the other, well, they'd be insane to do it. Certainly, none of them needs to be the new Watchmen guy, and it's really not worth ruining their careers to be universally deemed an inferior sellout. One guy that makes for an interesting possibility is Peter Milligan, whose just as good (if not better) then the others, but has never received the same kind of public acclaim, mainly because he has no feel for writing traditional superheroes. Would it be worth it to him to try and, finally, make a name for himself, basically going all-in?

Probably not. Try as I might, I just see the name "Judd Winick" floating around in my magic 8-ball. "Best available talent" will mean "the guy under contract that says yes". All we can really be sure of is, no matter what happens, it will not be very good. Because if there's one thing DC Comics has taught us under Dan Didio, it's no matter the project, no matter the concept, they will absolutely, positively fuck it up somehow.

Jonah Hex Makes Me Sad

2010-07-18T14:44:00.005-04:00

I didn't see Jonah Hex, which, judging from the box office totals, makes me just like each and every one of you. In five weeks it's barely made $10 million dollars, and is now only playing on 65 screens nationwide. With a budget of $47 million dollars, that's a pretty awful return. It's the type of movie that gets people fired, and will, hopefully, keep director Jimmy Hayward from ever working again. And here's something interesting: I just looked at this guy's Wikipedia page, and he used to work for Pixar. Guess he didn't learn much about storytelling there....

None of that matters so much, except now the character of Jonah Hex will be forever tainted by this mess. And that's a terrible shame, because Jonah Hex is a terrific character, probably the preeminent western character in comics. Moreover, the current Jonah Hex series, by writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray and illustrated by a host of artists, is fantastic, probably my favorite comic book currently being published. It's also a fairly low-selling comic, and it's long been assumed that the book was safe because DC wanted to have a Jonah Hex comic on the stands when the movie came out. That certainly worked out well.

I have no doubt that Jonah Hex would make for a great movie; he's a gritty, complex anti-hero that carries death with him wherever he goes. Hex (especially in the current comic) is basically just a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western; it should translate to the screen seamlessly. Heck, given the character's tragic past and brooding nature, a more serious tone akin to Eastwood's Unforgiven would not be inappropriate.

What is inappropriate is to give Hex some kind of wonky power to reanimate the dead, a Morgan Freeman-style weapons smith, a superweapon right out of Wild Wild West, and, of course, Megan Fox. It's a Jonah Hex movie in name, and scars, only.

What really boggles my mind is how poorly DC Comics have allowed their properties to translate into movies. Even ignoring the success blood rival Marvel has had, DC's track record is astonishingly poor. Seriously, excepting the Batman movies (and even they have the two Joel Schumacher films), what's a good movie based on a DC Comic? The first two Superman movies are fine (and I'm of the camp that liked Superman Returns, mostly). Beyond that... what? V for Vendetta? Well, it was better then Watchmen. Conversely, look at the absolute disasters based on DC Comics' characters that have shamefully made their way into Razzie contention: Catwoman, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and, now, Jonah Hex.

It's particularly appalling because DC is owned by a movie studio, Warner Brothers. Please, don't give me that old "right hand doesn't know what the left is doing in a big company" song- and- dance. DC and Time Warner should want to make the very best films possible, based on the characters that they own, because it's an investment. Now, DC has had success in generating interest in the comics source material (a lot more then Marvel), which is great. But what they don't seem to get is that a poor translation will permanently stain the property. If a movie comes out based on anything- be it a comic, book, video game, whatever- and it's incoherent and asinine, people will assume that the source material is incoherent and asinine. Don't believe me? Here's what Roger Ebert wrote about Jonah Hex: "It's based on some DC Comics characters, which may explain the way the plot jumps around. We hear a lot about graphic novels, but this is more of a graphic anthology of strange occult ideas."

Thanks to Frank Miller, it's going to take years before Will Eisner's work on The Spirit will ever be viewed with anything but skepticism by the general public, and Jonah Hex will probably end up getting the comic canceled and sending the character back into hibernation. Mommas, don't let your cowboys grow up to be in bad movies.

This One's for Dave

2010-07-16T19:34:00.003-04:00

So I received a complaint the other day about not updating my blog, which is ridiculous since, as any fool can plainly see, I've updated twice since March, and three times since February. What more do you people want? I need to sleep sometime!

So there.

Now that that's out of the way, here's what's probably going to end up being my favorite song for the year, Sleep Forever by Crocodiles. No, it doesn't look to be "the Crocodiles" and I don't really know why. But this song is pretty great. Longtime followers of mine will say "well, of course you like it, it sounds like the Jesus + Mary Chain". And that's true. But the world would be a better place if more things sounded like the Jesus + Mary Chain, I say. Certainly these assholes could do with a little JAMC in their lives.

Anyway, these guys look to be from San Diego, and their second album is out in September (ooooh, just in time for my birthday! How thoughtful!). I *ahem* acquired their first album, Summer of Hate, which is pretty good, though much rawer then Sleep Forever. Apparently, the first one was just two guys and a drum machine (that's very Jesus + Mary Chain, by the way), and now there' a proper band. How nice for them.

Hopefully, this link will allow you to download Sleep Forever.

1986- the Year We all Died

2010-06-24T23:41:00.020-04:00

Recently, DC Comics released a collection that I've literally waited 25 years to read. The Atomic Knights was a strip that ran in the DC Sci-fi anthology series Strange Adventures every few months, rotating with such strips as Star Hawkins and the Space Museum. Fondly received, the strip ran for several years before falling largely into obscurity.

My first exposure to the strip was in the 1985 book The Comic Book Heroes, by Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones. I received this as a gift that year, for Christmas or my birthday, and it's probably my favorite gift of my childhood. Yes, even better then my Coleco Vision or GI Joe headquarters (though if I'd ever gotten the aircraft carrier...). It's the one time I can really ever recall my parents encouraging my burgeoning love of comics. I can remember, a few years later, my father asking me what I wanted for my birthday; when I suggested there were a few comics that I would like, he frowned and replied "No, I want to get you something good."

Anyway. That book... well, I devoured it. I can't say how many times I read the thing, but my copy is now well worn, and I can still recognize many of the panels reprinted in the book when I come across them. Covering Marvel and DC titles from the Silver and Bronze Ages (with a little bit of what was then the modern stuff thrown in), the book exposed me to a history of comics at a young age. I fully credit it with encouraging an interest in the comics from these eras that I've since cultivated in my adult years. I learned about the work of guys like Jack Kirby, Gardner Fox, Neal Adams and Gil Kane long before I actually it in person.

Much as I loved learning about the origins of Spider-Man, or the transition of Batman from silly, outdated '50s relic to campy '60s icon to fearsome '70s creature of the night, what really captured my imagination were (to steal a college basketball term) the mid-majors. Jacobs and Jones raved about several series that I'd never even heard of, with names like the Doom Patrol, Master of Kung-Fu, Adam Warlock, or the Secret Six. For the young me, this was like learning about the secret history of comics, one which remained tantalizingly out of reach.

Two strips in particular stood out to me: Sergio Argones, Denny O'Neil, and Nick Cardy's short lived western anti-hero Bat Lash, and the Atomic Knights. When I began going to comic cons regularly, and with a bit of cash to spread around, one of the first things I did was put together a complete set of the Bat Lash series (that's not as impressive as it may sound: the series only lasted eight issues, including the character's debut in the pages of the DC tryout mag Showcase). The Atomic Knights proved more elusive; because the strip hadn't run in its' own title, but in the pages of an anthology magazine, determining which issues featured Atomic Knights tales was difficult. Covers were no help; as I was to later learn, the Knights had only been featured on one Strange Adventures cover.

Which brings us to today. Or, rather, a few weeks ago, when I was strolling through my local comics shop and was stunned to see the just-released Atomic Knights hardcover collection. I'd been hoping for one of these for years, ever since DC first began their archives books in the late 1980s. When that line petered out a few years ago, I figured that was it (not to mention that DC's only midway through reprinting Jack Cole's Plastic Man...). But DC started a new classic reprint program in the interim, beginning with Jack Kirby's Fourth World saga, though at the time those looked to be singular publications. Since then, DC has moved onto other Kirby works, like The Demon and Kamandi, and even his Golden Age work for the company, such as the Sandman and the Newsboy Legion, finally building a nice little Kirby library. I quite liked the production values on the Kirby books, and presumably DC did too, because they've begun to use the same basic format in reprinting other works. Unlike the Archives books, which are a bit dull design-wise, these books are bright and colorful-- just like the comics they celebrate.

The Atomic Knights came from the editorial office of Julius Schwartz, for my money the premiere editorial vision of the Silver Age. And, yes, I'm including Stan Lee in that equation. Schwartz is mostly known for super heroes- he essentially launched the Silver Age by reviving the Flash- but science fiction is where he heart lay. The strip was written by regular Schwartz writer John Broome, regular scripter of Green Lantern and the Flash, and illustrated by Murphy Anderson. Though a superb penciller in his own right, Anderson is best known as an inker, most notably lending his pristine pen to Carmine Infantino's pencils on the Flash. I'm a big fan of Anderson, and I consider him to be the finest inker the field has ever seen, the rare talent that made every artist he worked over look better.

The basic premise of the series finds the world in disarray, after a sudden, short planetwide nuclear war. Enter Gardner Grayle, an average former soldier, and I do mean average-- Grayle even has a pre-war newspaper article that declares him to have been found average in every conceivable way. What an odd distinction. I suppose, in a post-Armageddon enviornment in which the world's population has been devastated, the average soldier is pretty darn good, because Grayle quickly establishes himself as the leader of the community of Durvale. The Knights gain their name when they don suits of Medieval armor to protect themselves from the deadly rayguns of the Black Baron, who has used his possession of Durvale's remaining food stocks to extort to town's survivors. After making quick work of the Baron and his forces, Grayle and the other Knights- Bryndon, one of the world's last remaining scientists, brothers Wayne and Hollis Hobard, schoolteacher Douglas Herald, and his sister Marene- form a permanent band of adventurers, with their armor continuing to serve as historic protection against science fiction threats.

One of the more interesting plot devices of the early Knights stories is the fact that the atomic war has killed all animal and vegetable life, meaning that mankind's remains must subsist on food stocks left behind before the war. This element gives the strip a dramatic weight missing in other post-Apocalyptic fiction, because we know that the survivors are living on borrowed time. It might be generations, but eventually, mankind is going to run out of food.

However, despite this doomsday scenario, not to mention the strip's basic premise, the Atomic Knights is not gloomy by any means. If anything, Broome and Anderson invest a kind of breezy optimism to their work. When the Knights go to New Orleans, it becomes an opportunity for Broome to express his obvious love for jazz. It's like watching an episode of Treme.

Some might find this tone to trivialize the strip's serious undertones. Certainly, were this a Marvel publication, we'd be treated to issue after issue of doom and gloom. I find it refreshing; it's one of the reasons I prefer Silver Age DC comics. In a Schwartz comic, you can be sure that the pathos would never get in the way of the adventure. Hell, that could've been their slogan.

Still, it's not a perfect strip. For their part, Jacobs and Jones believe that the feature lost it's edge when (and I suppose this next bit qualifies as a spoiler) it's revealed that the real hand behind mankind's destruction wasn't the governments of the world, but a race of underground mole people. Personally, I think that story's fine, but I do think the strip looses something when the Knights are able to rescue various vegetation to reseed the planet from Atlantis, which... oh, never mind. It's too convoluted. But, needless to say, without the threat of eventually running out of food, the comic looses a good deal of momentum.

And then there's Marene. The girl. The token girl. Now, Silver Age comics were never exactly a bastion for strong female role models, but Marene is a particularly egregious example of '60s sexism. Marene actively takes part in exactly two of the Knights' fifteen adventures, the first and the last: in the former; she sneaks into the last remaining suit of armor, deemed too small for a full-grown man, thus earning the nickname "the littlest Knight"; In the latter, she cuts her hair, puts on some baggy clothes, and infiltrates a gang of orphaned teenage boys terrorizing the town. No, it's not good.

But the comic, overall, lives up to my expectations. Anderson's work is just a joy to behold. I love that each of the Knights' armor is subtly different, so that you can tell which is which when they are in action. While there are certainly goofy moments, they are endearingly goofy. And I love that the strip doesn't focus on events that lead to mankind's destruction, but rather on the survivors' efforts to rebuild. Whatever it's flaws, the Atomic Knights is a lot of fun, and an obvious labor of love from the creators. Sadly, though, there was never a proper ending given to the Knights' adventures, they just end. Perhaps Broome decided that, if he'd reached the point that he was putting Marene in the stories, he'd run out of ideas. We'll never know.

It's a shame that this volume doesn't provide any insight to the Knights' behind-the-scenes origins or endings. While the Kirby books are chock full of extras, including both forwards and afterwards, Who's Who pages, and Kirby's rare Hunger Dogs graphic novel, The Atomic Knights features only a short forward by Anderson. And it's great- he includes a neat story about former DC writer/editor Mike W. Barr calling him on the day in 1986 that the fictional atomic war occurred- it's barely half a page. Also missing is the Knights' final appearance, in the pages of the Superman team-up book DC Comics Presents. And that's not a happy comic, not for fans of the Atomic Knights, but it does provide some closure. And more Anderson, which is surely a good thing.

Let's Try This Again

2010-06-24T23:35:00.004-04:00

Okay, so I haven't been a very good blogger so far. I basically started this thing because I wanted to have a little place where I could just go to unload whatever was swimming around in my head, and somehow I got away from that. But I'm going to give this another go. After all, it's fun, even if I do hate to type.

Oh, I should also mention that I'm now finished with my Masters in Library Science, which means one of my best excuses for not doing this regularly is gone.

Hillary and I Have Solved One LOST Riddle

2010-03-02T17:13:00.002-05:00

Hi there. Boy, it's been a while, hasn't it? You could say that I took the Olympics off, except that I didn't really watch the Olympics... that hockey game was great, though. Anyway, stuff happens.

I'm posting this now, for the sake of posterity, that Hillary and I have just solved one of the great riddles of LOST. Hillary just came up and asked me "do you think Hurley's friend Dave is a ghost?" And I never thought about it, but yeah, of course he is. And then this thought popped in my head: "maybe he's Libby's dead husband." Oh, yes. That's the connection between Libby and Hurley! For comfirmation, I turned to Libby's character bio on Wikipedia, which states that her husband's name is... David! Hahahahahahahahahhahaha!

So I just wanted to post that, for posterity, so that when this is revealed in a few weeks, we can say to the entire internet "we told you so!"

More stuff later, I swear.

Ricky Gervais + Elmo= Funny.

2010-02-09T00:50:00.002-05:00

Want definitive proof of Ricky Gervais' genius? He makes Elmo funny. And here's a bonus behind the scenes clip. When does the podcast cartoon begin again?

Super Bowl Stuff

2010-02-08T08:40:00.004-05:00

Well, that was pretty good, wasn't it? I don't think it will go down as an all-time classic, but it delivered what we expected: two elite offenses moving the ball at will. It was a bit of a weird game, because there weren't a lot of big plays, just long methodical drives. I think both teams punted once apiece... no, I remember the Colts punting twice. Whatever. A defensive clinic it wasn't, which made the end all the more amazing.

I haven't checked yet to see who the MVP was, but it's Brees, right? I mean, who else could it be? He was dominant. As I posted here a few days ago, I've always liked Brees, and I don't think the Chargers are criticized enough for giving up on him after one bad year, then letting him walk after he rebounded. And now he's a Super Bowl champion, and they are still getting upset at home by lesser opponents.

Of course, the thing we'll all be talking about from this game is Sean Payton's two gutsy calls, one of them boneheaded and the other brilliant. I thought going for it on 4th down from the one was a pretty lousy decision. I'm all for aggressiveness, but you have to be smart. In that situation, you need points on the board if you want to stay in the game. And I know he's thinking that he needs a touchdown to stay in the game, but he really didn't. Not yet. But without points, if Indy scores again (and there was no reason to think they wouldn't), then you need touchdowns. Sometimes it's better to play it safe.

Of course, Indy took him off the hook by giving the Saints the ball right back, with enough time that they got the field goal anyway. Hell, maybe it worked out better, because Manning never got a realistic chance to add points at the end of the half. Sometimes it's better to be lucky then smart.

And then there's the onside kick. How awesome was that? Phil Simms had just got done saying that teams often like to defer (meaning that, if they win the coin toss, they choose to take the kickoff in the second half rather then the first; which, by the way, I would do almost every single time were I a football coach) just so they don't have Manning coming out of the locker room with the ball, and then bam! The ultimate ballsy call. I loved it. And it totally changed the game. The Saints go down the field and score, and the Colts defense looked like it never recovered.

But the Saints defense wasn't much better. It really looked like this was going to be a game that comes down to the last possession... until Manning throws a pretty lousy interception, which is returned for a touchdown. And the game might not be over (there were still over two minutes to play), but it sure got a lot more difficult for the Colts. I don't know if Manning's expected Reggie Wayne, or if it was just that lousy a pass. I know the Saints were blitzing, but it didn't look to me like that effected Manning all that much. But I was glad to hear Simms admit that he was wrong in saying before the play that the Saints shouldn't blitz. All damn season I've heard Simms say gutless things like that, and he's almost always wrong. It's very simple: you can't win football games if you don't pressure the quarterback, and by and large you can't pressure the quarterback if you don't blitz. It doesn't matter if you have seven, eight guys back in coverage, a good quarterback will still pick them apart, if given time.

Anyway. Even more shocking then the interception, though, was the Saints red zone stand on the next possession. I think we'd all mentally put another touchdown on the board for the Colts, and then they strangest thing happens: they can't score. And the game's over.

And that's that. Simms and Jim Nantz were their usual passable, vanilla selves. I know others think they are a great team, but I find them dull, and myself disagreeing with Simms more then just about any other big time analyst. The Who were just fine. They've been playing the same songs for almost fifty years now, what did you expect? I did wonder, though, if they were requested by CBS to be the halftime entertainment as an extended CSI commercial.

I missed the big Tebow commercial, and most of the others, because I don't watch the Super Bowl commercials any more then I do during any other game. Can we please just dispose of the myth that Super Bowl commercials are somehow better then normal? It's still just the same garbage per break as usual: three beer commercials, two car commercial, a promo for a lousy show, and a wild card. They're still commercials, and they still suck.

The Puppy Bowl was pretty good, though. I can't believe the Chug was the MVP. But the puppies won, so everyone went home happy.

There's Too Much to Talk About

2010-02-02T11:42:00.003-05:00

There's like four things that I want to write about, but none with any kind of depth, so I'm just going to throw them all together.

1. Hey, the Grammys happened. Everyone wave your little flags for the Grammys. This just reminds me how blissfully ignorant I am about contemporary music these days. I didn't even know that Beyonce had a new album out. Unless they were celebrating I am...Sasha Fierce! I don't know if she writes it with the exclamation point at the end, but it looks like it belongs there, doesn't it? I just love it when pop stars publicly admit to having secret fantasy identities with preposterous names. What is she, eight?

Anyway, I'm sure that everyone that won a Grammy sucks. They always do.

2. Speaking of awards shows, the Oscar noms came out today. Just in time for DVD cover printing season! I don't like this whole "nominating ten movies for best picture" thing. It waters down the whole thing. It's like adding an extra round to the playoffs. Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire is the cinimatic equivilent of the 8-8 team that backs into the playoffs.

To me, the wild card is Inglorious Bastards. Perhaps I'll post more about it later, but I think it's the most frustrating movie to come out in ages. Parts are brilliant. As gripping as anything I've seen on screen. And parts are just no damn good; basically, all the parts that actually feature the Bastards. If you were to sit down with this movie and edit out every scene Brad Pitt's in, it would be a masterpiece, or at least closer to a masterpiece.

But it should probably win, because it was a weak year for movies and there's really nothing remotely close. Keeping the playoffs analogy from above going, Inglorious Bastards is the cinimatic equivalent of the seeming juggernaut that shows lots of flaws, but no one else is good enough to take advantage, so they win the title.

Couple more quick predictions: George Clooney should win Best Actor. Tarentino should not win Best Director, no matter what IB does in the Best Picture category, but Christoph Waltz simply must win. And if Sandra Bullock wins Best Actress for The Blind Side, the Kodak Theater should collapse upon itself into a sigularity.

3. Lost. Is. Back. Tonight. I'll get to that. If you really can't wait, you can read what my buddy James wrote. Though I'll warn you: it's long. I haven't even read the damn thing yet.

But first, I want to talk about 24. It seems that my worst fears have come true, and that the Curse of the Even Seasons is in full effect. This season has just been lame beyond words. The main plot feels like it still hasn't gotten started. The big bad guy, Arab Jason Schwartzman, has spent the last two hours offscreen in some kind of Russo-Islamic orgy. Every thing going on in the big peace negotiations with President Bulldog Face and Arab Joe Pesci is tremendously boring. Now, Arab Joe Pesci is acting all crazy because Arab Jason Schwartzman betrayed him, so the British and Germans might pull out! What a crazy twist!

And then there's the Starbuck Subplot. Oh, the Starbuck Subplot. It's so bad, I don't even know where to begin. Look, I just don't care that Dana Thrace's real name is actually Jenny Craig. I've no connection to her, and just because she's played by an actress that was on a show in which I did care about her, doesn't mean I care about her here. It's not a transitive property.

And this whole plotline is so distracting from the main story. It basically says "hey, even the CTU agents aren't really focused on what's going on with the Russians, so why should you be?" It might have worked, if the show were starting cold, with just some intel to work, but there's already been a terrorist attack. Shouldn't people seem a little, I dunno, motivated? Anyone?

I do like burnt-out Renee Walker, though. She's, like, a billion times hotter and more interesting then normal Renee Walker. And, see, her storyline is working because we care about her. Why is it so !@#$ hard for the 24 braintrust to figure this out?

So. Lost. Is back. I said that already. But it bears repeating. Lost. Tonight. And there are enough spoilers out there so that we have some idea of what's going on, and the Lindleoff and Cuse have said that by the end of tonight we'll finally have enough information to make accurate theories. All that is good.

I don't have too much to say right now; I'm sure I will tomorrow. But I just want to put this in print right now: The Island is not actually an island. It's a sophisticated time machine designed to look like an island. That's why it can be "moved", and that's why it has a mechanism built into its' center. And Jacob and his enemy aren't gods, they're time travelers. For some reason, they can't hurt each other directly; that's why Jacob's enemy had to find a loophole.

At least, that's my two cents. We'll see, right?

Bill Watterson Speaks

2010-02-01T19:29:00.003-05:00

Well, this site isn't exactly a Bill Watterson tribute site, but his work did inspire the new title, so it's only appropriate that I mention his first interview in fifteen years. Not coincidentally, that's also the number of years it's been since Watterson ended Calvin & Hobbes. And that seems really weird. I can remember the runup to the final strip like it was yesterday, and buying (and saving) the Inquirer that day. The last strip, if you've never seen it (or haven't for awhile) is really quite beautiful. It says goodbye in a hopeful, if sad, kind of way.

Watterson never wanted to be Jim Davis. I don't think he ever expected his strip to be so successful. If he did, he really may not have gone ahead with it, given how much he hates the spotlight. But thank God that never happened. I don't mind saying that I think Calvin & Hobbes is the last great comic strip, and one of the five greatest of all time. It's certainly the best of my lifetime.

It's amazing that the strip still has such power today. Unlike, well, just about every other cartoonist ever, Watterson was adamantly opposed to exploiting his characters in other mediums, so the books collecting the strip are it. Every other piece of merch that you see bearing Calvin and Hobbes' likeness is a bootleg; especially those retarded "Calvin pissing on things" stickers you see. Man, I hate those. I will admit, though, to owning a pair of Calvin & Hobbes boxer shorts; I'm not sorry at all. They are awesome (even if not very comfortable).

The interview itself is not that great. Watterson doesn't really say anything that he didn't say fifteen years ago, so it's really a lost opportunity. Really, the only thing exciting is learning that the Post Office is issuing a Calvin and Hobbes stamp! I didn't know that. How awesome. Hey, when you're dealing with Calvin & Hobbes, you've got to take what you can get.

Oh, and thanks to Dave for pointing that out.

Minimate Cutoms: John Constantine

2010-02-01T14:18:00.003-05:00

All right, let's do another one, while I'm in the mood. This is John Constantine (AKA Hellblazer), another one of my first customs, and one of my only attempts at painting. You can kinda see why I don't paint more... I might end up scrapping this coat and doing a Sharpie job on a white lab coat, which are always plentiful.

Anyway, Constantine holds a special place in my heart because of the spot on likeness. His head and hair both come from Jack Bauer. Fun fact #1: Constantine was originally modeled after Sting, but I think Kiefer here does a fine job as a stand-in. Fun fact #2: that's actually a woman's torso, the one I had left over from my Question custom. I really don't think you can tell those are breasts. Okay, maybe you can now....

Oh, and the cigar hand comes from Kara Thrace. I've always meant to paint it white. I mean to do a lot of things.

Minimate Customs: Commishioner Gordon & Oracle

2010-01-31T23:31:00.007-05:00

Dammit, I've really fallen behind in posting these. And this is one of the only reasons that I wanted to start a blog. Even if no one read the blasted thing, at least I'd have a little place to post my Minimates. And I haven't even gotten to most of the cool ones. Hell, I haven't even taken pictures yet of most of the cool ones. So we'll start catching up with a two-fer, which also begins our look at the Batman family. I've done more Batman related customs then anything else, with the goal of having the Batfam as complete as possible. It won't happen (Two-Face, for one, is beyond my abilities), but it's good to have goals.

This is really more of a Lt. Gordon, what with the light hair... but so what. It was a bigger deal to me to get the right hair style then the color, in this case. And the glasses... just what I wanted. I've seen other Gordons with drawn-on glasses, but I like this better. And, until they make a head with glasses and a mustache, I'll be happy with it.

So the head comes from one of the "Man With No Name" Minimates; this one, I think. And the hairpiece comes from a Jack Bauer. As you will see, I've made extensive use of 24 Minimates in my customs. Not much to say about his clothes pieces, except to say that I recently upgraded his trenchcoat to this one here, which was just released. One of the more baffling omissions among Minimate pieces was a good, simple brown trenchcoat. We've got lots and lots of black ones, and brown ones that have been styled a certain way, but no brown ones... until now. It always bugged me that Jim had a black coat.

Oracle was actually the one that sparked this whole customizing nonsense in me in the first place. For those of you that don't know, Oracle is the former Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, whom was shot by the Joker and paralyzed in The Killing Joke. Later writers gave her new life by turning her into an expert computer hacker/analyst. Anyway, the Batgirl Minimate happens to have a removable mask, and extra hair, allowing you to make an unmasked Batgirl. So I got to thinking that it wouldn't be that hard to make Oracle... and here we are.

The hair comes from the aforementioned Batgirl, the hair and torso come from BSG Gina (by the way, it was a big deal to me when I figured out that was the perfect Oracle head. Ah, memories). And her chair comes from Professor X. Sadly, the one accessory I really want to complete the whole thing- a laptop- was set to come with 24 Day 3, but that set was cancelled before release.

Blackest Lost

2010-01-28T13:15:00.002-05:00

Okay, so just bear with me a minute here. This will be cool. I promise.

So DC Comics is doing this big event right now called Blackest Night, which flows from what has been going on in the Green Lantern comics the last few years. You all know about the Green Lanterns, right? They're an interstellar police force that use Power Rings guided by their willpower. Anyway, writer Geoff Johns has been riffing on the concept by creating new Lantern Corps, using different colored rings powered by different emotions (I know, willpower isn't an emotion... just go with it). Red ring bearers, for example, are filled with rage. Yellow Lanterns (led by ex-GL Sinestro) instill great fear, blue lanterns inspire hope, and...

I'm loosing you, aren't I?

Okay. Blackest Night. Basically the dead have risen, powered by Black Lantern rings. And, as there has been a lot of death around here in the DC Universe the last few years, the whole thing seems centered on Earth. We've got a Black Lantern Aquaman, and a Black Lantern Martian Manhunter, and now a Black Lantern Hawkman (he died in the first issue), and many, many others. And representatives (the nominal leader) from each Corp have formed a little band, because only by the rings working together can the Black Lanterns be destroyed. That's the gist of it.

There, that wasn't so bad, was it?

Only in the last issue, and I suppose this is a spoiler, but the damn thing's been out since Christmas, so you only have yourself to blame if you don't know this, it was decided that one of each lantern isn't enough to kill all the Black Lanterns on Earth. So the rings duplicated themselves, and hastily chose deputies from amongst Earth's heroes and villains. The Flash, for example, inspires great hope, so he's the Blue Lantern. The Atom feels great compassion, so he's the Indigo Lantern... yes, indigo. I'm not making this up.

Look, it might be easier at this point if you go to the Wikipedia page. I'll wait.

So the wife and I read this, awhile back, and she asked me what I thought of Johns' choices for Lanterns. And I think they're fine, mostly. Scarecrow, as the Yellow Lantern, makes sense, but is a little too obvious. I like Lex Luthor as the Orange Lantern, which feeds off greed (my friend Kevin was especially unimpressed by Luthor as greed agent, suggesting that he should be the Blue Lantern, because he fights Superman, and you've got to feel a lot of hope to do that. I think it's an interesting premise. I don't agree with it, but I think it's interesting). The only one I really have a problem with is Mera, Aquaman's little-used wife (who has, at least, played a big role in the series thus far) as the Red Lantern. That's the best you could come up with? Mera?

Anyway. While we were chatting about this, and probably because we were finishing rewatching season 5 of Lost on DVD, I started speculating which characters on Lost would wear which rings, if the same thing happened on the Island. And, you know, there's a lot of dead people on the Island with axes to grind. Who represents will? Fear? Rage? Love? Hope? And the rest?

Yep, that's it. That's what this post is about. Sure took a while to get here, huh? But moving on. Hillary and I talked about it for a while (meaning: most of the rest of the night, and I think it probably kept both of us up), and we managed to assign rings to everybody. I think it's a fun game, and I encourage you to try it. Pick your favorite show- or, better yet, your family and friends- and try to decide who would get what ring, if the dead were rising. Only they're not zombies. Just very, very zombie-like.

1. Green Lantern/Willpower: Jack Sheppard. I know: too easy. But it's the only real choice. Jack is the guy who's totally dominated by his iron, stubborn, will. He's the guy who is always chasing off into the jungle, and carrying dynamite in his backpack, even though he's the doctor and the survivors' most precious resource. He's the guy that wanted to perform his own appendectomy. Hell, he's the guy who refused to believe that Locke had moved the Island even after watching it disappear. So this isn't really a validation of Jack as a hero, just an admittance that he is... shall we say focused to the extreme.

2. Yellow Lantern/Fear: Sayid. Well, duh. I think that the Yellow Lantern Corps might have been invented with Sayid in mind. I also think that Naveen Andrews would make an excellent Sinestro in the upcoming Green Lantern movies, but I digress.

3. Red Lantern/Rage: Sawyer. I thought about this one for quite awhile. Both Ben and Sayid would have a great claim on this one as well, but I think Sawyer takes the cake. His entire life (much like Batman) has been built around revenge for his dead parents. His personality for much of the show was really just a mask; it's not until this last season, trapped with the Dharma Initiative in the '70s, that Sawyer begins to come into his own. And then it's all taken away, the life he's built, and he watches the woman he loves pulled to her death, knowing that she goes to her grave doubting his love for her. So yeah, I'd say rage is Sawyer's primary motivation.

4. Orange Lantern/Avarice: Ben. If we'd done this around seasons 1, 2, or 3, no doubt this would be Sawyer. And I don't really like reducing Ben to being all about greed. But he is still a villain, after all. And almost every action he's ever made has been about preserving himself and his power. And, I think, his speech to Jacob, his declaration of "what about me?" ultimately reveals a lot about him.

5. Blue Lanterns/ Hope: Locke. What is Locke's defining character trait, it it's not hope? He wants to be special, desperately, and on the Island he finally succeeds, or so he thinks. Unfortunately, this optimistic desperation seems to leave him constantly exploited by others: first his father, who tricks him into giving up a kidney; then the cult he joins, and the police that see him as an easy way to infiltrate it; Ben, over and over again; and finally Jacob's unnamed enemy, who uses Locke as a pawn to both manipulate Jack into returning to the Island (to, ultimately, be involved in the Incident), and to get close to Jacob. I'm not saying these are their best traits, only their most dominant....

6. Star Sapphires/Love: Juliet. This one was all Hillary. It was definitely the toughest one to identify. For one thing, the Star Sapphires are only women, so that eliminates much of the cast (including Desmond, sadly). Kate? Please. Sun? Oh, don't give me Sun. Anyone that would abandon their child, perhaps forever, on a wild revenge kick doesn't know a damn thing about love. Even amongst the dead, there's not much. Thought about Penny, but she's not really a part of the main cast, and she's never even been on the Island (that we know about.... bum bum BUM). But Juliet...? Yeah, Juliet works. First off, her whole reason for accepting Richard's offer is to help her sister. And she keeps working to try and save the women impregnated on the Island, even after watching so many die. And there's Goodwyn, and Jack, and Sawyer... she does crazy things, for all of them, because she loves them. We watched the season 5 finale after talking about this, and Hillary must have said 50 billion times "she's so the Star Sapphire", to the point I almost had to slug her. But she's right.

7. Indigo Tribe/ Compassion: Hurley. This stems from my belief that Hurley is the heart and soul of the show. He was always the great mediator amongst the survivors, while never wanting to be the leader. I think it's telling that, on an island full of liars- Ben, Kate, Sawyer- people don't lie to Hurley often. Even Jacob, when he visits him, is entirely straight with him. Perhaps that's why the dead want to visit Hurley.

Okay, I lied. That wasn't cool at all, was it?

And Then There Were Two

2010-01-25T18:08:00.003-05:00

I don't have all that much to say about yesterday's championship games; I only watched a few minutes of the AFC game, and I was doing something for school last night so I wasn't paying close attention to the NFC game. I'm glad the Saints won, because I like Drew Brees and always have been. I don't think people call the Chargers on the carpet enough for giving up on Brees so quickly; he had a decent first year as a starter, then struggled, and they gave up on him and drafted Phillip Rivers. He's been brilliant since then. Because Rivers worked out for the Chargers, it never gets mentioned, but if San Diego knew what they had in Brees, they could have used that pick on someone else (although looking over the draft, no one jumps out as the obvious choice. If only Larry Fitzgerald had gone after Rivers...). And then, even though Brees had developed into a Pro Bowler, and San Diego was by now a legit Super Bowl contender, they decided to let Brees go and start over with Rivers as the starter. And then, in one of the all time great personell blunders, the Miami Dolphins decided to go with Dante Culpepper (coming off knee surgery) instead of Brees (coming off shoulder surgery) as a free agent. Culpepper was 1-3 in 4 games in his only year with the Dolphins.

Of course, it was the other quarterback in the NFC championship game that's the big story. I suppose, if one believes in karma, one might think it finally stepped up and smacked Brett Farve around. But, if that was the case, it would have been the Green Bay Packers, not the Saints, to perhaps finally end the Neverending Quarterback. Peter King, in Monday Morning Quarterback today, pointed out something really interesting about Farve the last three years: in each season, the last significant pass that he threw (he would throw one more for the Jets last year) ended in an interception. Not exactly the way a legend wants to go out.

Of course, I fully expect Brett Farve to play next year. At this point, why not? Until he's dead and buried, I think the threat of Brett Farve playing another year will last. I have no idea what drives him; at this point, he's nothing else to accomplish. But I suspect that he wants to go out like John Elway. He, of course, was widely viewed as a "yes but" quarterback: "yes, he was great, but he never won a Super Bowl". Then he won two, retiring after the last, and many now started to call him the best ever. Farve doesn't quite have that problem-- he won his title, but it was 13 years ago, and since then the playoffs have not been kind, including a Super Bowl loss, ironically, to Elway.

Well, whatever. We'll all have to endure another "will he or won't he" offseason with Farve. You know what I don't get, though? Every story I read about him retiring basically makes it seem as if he has two choices in life: play football or mow his lawn. That's always given as his retirement options. Is that really why you keep playing, Brett? You don't want to mow your lawn, day after day? I just picture him waking up each day, walking to his bedroom window, staring out at the endless grassy hills of the Farve ranch, and sighing deeply. You really need to take up golf or something, Brett.