Getting ready for C2E2

It is really weird. I seems like only weeks ago that I heard the news that a new comic book convention was coming to town. It's actually been more than a year since the initial announcement, and now C2E2 is only a week away. I have decided that I am going to play this con cool. What I mean is that I'm going more to see people I know and to socialize and not really worry about buying a whole lot of stuff. This is mainly due to the fact that I need the money for my upcoming trip to Europe and also because there will be a lot of people I want to see, taking stuff home from McCormick Place is not as easy as from the Rosemont Convention Center, and less purchases equals less clutter in my apartment. I'm not saying that I won't dive in some longboxes, but I plan to rigidly stick to the list of issues I need to complete some runs. (Thank you ComicbookDB for making it so easy to keep an organized list or what I am looking for.)

There is one thing though that I am taking some time and preparing for next weekend. I have never really been very organized when it comes to the commissioned art pieces that I have bought at cons. I've meant to fix this oversight but I really didn't know how to do it. From what I read on the internet and hear in podcasts, most people have a sketchbook and have artists draw in those. Now I am only speaking for myself but I just don't get sketchbooks. The idea doesn't work for me. First, having a sketchbook limits you at a con since the first artist you get a commission from has to take the sketchbook. You are out of luck until he or she is done. That means either you just write that time off or you plan like crazy ahead of time to make sure you take the book to each artist you want one after the other and hope they have time left to do it. The other problem I have is the fact that I like having the oppurtunity to frame a piece if I really love it (and the wife approves). You can't do that if the commission is in a sketchbook. So after spending some time at some office supply stores and online, here is the answer that I have come up with: the TOPS 11x17 Executive Showfile. (Even that name makes it sound important.) With a big enough size to fit all the art that I bought at cons before and the freedom to get more than one piece at a time and display them how I want, the showfile is perfect for me. I don't want people to think that I am insulting them if they have a sketchbook. I have seen some amazing books where every drawing fits a theme (for instance "The Many Deaths of Strawberry Shortcake" and "Gambit fighting an alligator"). Sketchbooks just aren't for me though and I am excited about the new alternative that I have found.

Put some Rock Sugar on me.

Geeks come in every shape and size and span the gamut of things one can obsess about. I am the first to admit that my weakest area of geekiness is music. Sure, I love music and I have gigs and gigs of tunes on my iPod, but I am not one of those guys that knows the names of every drummer that has ever played with KISS or knows where Mötley Crüe played their first gig. I know what bands I like when I hear them and that is as far as it goes for me. Now with that said, I have to gush over a new band that I just found out about. As soon as I heard them, I knew I must use my little outlet to the world that I have here and spread the good word, the word of ROCK SUGAR!

OK, here's the story. One of the funniest podcasts ever is Mike Schmidt's "The 40 Year Old Boy" which I have been listening to since the very first episode. Recently, a fan sent him a music recommendation and he could not stop talking about them on the podcast. That recommendation was of course Rock Sugar. Then days later, the band signs to a label and will start touring. Coincidence? Nope, someone heard the podcast and signed them. How amazing is that!? So I go on the band's website and order their CD and wait patiently for the mailman to deliver it.

"But Mike, why didn't you just download the album like a normal person?"

I was getting to that. Rock Sugar is not your normal band. They play "mashups." They still don't have the rights to put their music on iTunes and the like because they take songs we all know by heart, retool them, and mash them together. This might be too hard to explain in words. I think the only way for you to understand is to see it....



Now hopefully, you can understand why I love Rock Sugar.

The End of an Era

I just wanted to make a quick note and and mark the end of something pretty special. In case you didn't know, Around Comics, the best comic book podcast out there if you ask me, had their final recording session last night. It was a memorable night with a whole lot of great people jammed into Dark Tower Comics, eating pizza, shooting the shit, and just having a good time. It will definitely be sad to see it go. To Chris, Sal, and Tom, you have done a great service to the comic industry and to comic fans. Well done, sirs.

I'd like some puddin' please.

Don't you love that feeling when you read a book or see a movie, and it just totally resonates with you? Well, I had that experience yesterday as I read some issues that have been sitting in my "to be read" pile. Those issues were Gotham City Sirens #5-9.

First and foremost, it is not like I have just let these issues build up for five months without reading them. I recently changed comic stores, and Sirens was one of the titles that my old store could not get in stock even though I poked and prodded and asked them to order it. Now that I go to Dark Tower Comics here in Chicago, I have been able to fill in all of the issues that I have been missing. In the case of Sirens, I was missing issues #5 and #6. Now armed with five months worth of issues, I put them in the messenger bag I bring to work and decided to spend my lunch with the ladies of Gotham City. It actually was hard to have to wait to read these because I loved the first four issues (I have even blogged about the series before), but now I get my chance to dive in.

There is a reason that I bring all this up and the reason is Harley Quinn. I have always liked Harley but these issues showed that her character is more multifaceted than I think a lot of people would realize. Harley is not just the Joker's sidekick any more. Despite her festive costume and her one-liners, when you break her down, Quinn is a truly tragic anti-hero seeking penance for past wrongdoings. The tragedy starts with her origin. Most people know that Harley was created by Paul Dini specifically for "Batman: the Animated Series." What they may not know is that Dini created a back story for Harley once she made the transition to the comics, and it is a back story that almost breaks your heart. Even though she was able to go to college on a gymnastics scholarship and eventually became a prominent psychiatrist, Harley's horrible home life and dead beat, criminal father scarred her mentally and made her easy pickings for the Joker and his corruption. Today, Dini writes her as this smart, educated woman trapped in the mind of a mistreated child. What makes her even more tragic is that even though now that she wants to fight the good fight and make amends for what she's done, she is still in love with "her puddin'." The Joker is Harley's tragic flaw, and for me, that makes her a complex character worthy of reading about. What I am getting at is that when she's written well, Harley Quinn is an amazing character that gets forgotten due to her past sidekick status and television roots.

Gotham City Sirens is an under appreciated gem that I worry will not last long. I totally admit that I'm writing about it right now partially due to the selfish fact that I want the book to continue so I can continue to read it. But I can't be the only one that enjoys this, right? If you like the Batman family, why in the world wouldn't you give this book a chance? Issue #9 is an excellent jumping on point with the girls hiring the Riddler to help them with a mystery that literally fell into their laps (or should I say, fell into their pool). Go out and pick it up. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

You got free money. What else do you want?

Last weekend and the early part of this week was an insane roller coaster of emotions for many nerds. In case you hadn't heard, Amazon marked down tons of comic hardcovers and omnibuses to clearance level prices. We're talking discounts as big as $100 books for $14.99. Of course, everyone scrambles to get in on the deals and message boards and twitter feeds are abuzz. Now after years of trolling sites like Fat Wallet and Slickdeals, I know when a deal is too good to be true and that there is little to no chance it will be honored. So, I too ordered some books, knowing full well that the order would probably be cancelled as soon as the pricing error is found, just in the off chance I could get some cheap reads.

Fast forward three days. One of the four books I ordered (The Old Man Logan hardcover for $14.99) arrives and I find an email telling me Amazon has cancelled the other books, but gave me a $25 credit for the inconvenience. How awesome is that!? Now I am riding a nerd high and thinking about what to use this free money on. I start surfing the internet to see if some of my fellow comic enthusiasts got the same deal. That is when my gears were officially grinded. I found tweets and message boards posts of angry customers saying that Amazon sucks and that this whole thing was horrible even after they too had received their $25 credit. What do you people want!? Handwritten apology notices? Bigger credits? A pound of flesh? Hookers? Honestly, what would make you happy? Amazon didn't have to do anything, let alone give you $25, because their site specifically states that they can cancel orders due to pricing errors. I just couldn't believe it and I needed to vent a little. We all had our fun this weekend and we all got something out of it. Be happy with that. Geez.

Massively Affected

As much as I herald the cause of nerds, geeks, and fanboys everywhere, there is one aspect of my brethren that I have come to hate. I think, in most circles, the worst trait for nerds is their vocal distaste for anything and everything. Go online moments after a movie premieres and foulmouthed tweet after foulmouthed tweet will abound. No matter how good something is, you will find thousands of acerbic status updates, forum posts, and comments from angry nerds nitpicking even the smallest details and blowing them out of proportion. Or they can go the complete opposite way and hate something for no reason whatsoever and still feel the need to rant to anyone that will listen. I don't think I ever need to hear or read the words "It just didn't work for me" ever again. They are totally useless words that convey absolutely nothing. Opinions are like assholes as the saying goes, but shouting your opinion at the top of your lungs makes you an asshole. I learned this the hard way and I know now that back in college, a lot of people didn't like me for just that reason. Once I realized how asinine it all was, I promised myself that I would end it from then on. In this day and age, comments like those just make the commenter out to be the fool. Just talking about this in the abstract though doesn't cut it. The only way to illustrate this is with an example and I have the perfect one: Mass Effect 2.

Mass Effect 2 has completely changed the way I see video games. As a story, I would hold Mass Effect 2 up against the greatest examples of science fiction and it would hold its own. The way I have described it to people is "take the dynamic alien species of Star Trek and the multifaceted and relatable characters of Battlestar Galactica and place them in the space opera and grand scale of Star Wars and you get Mass Effect 2." While I admit that the first game had its faults in gameplay, I still held it as my favorite game of all time until the day that its sequel finally hit my doorstep and I put the disc into my Xbox. From that point on, there was nothing else that could compare in my mind. It was as if Bioware had created a game just for me and me alone and the fact that they sold hundreds of thousands of other copies was just gravy for them. But here is where my ire toward my fellow nerds comes to a head. I go online just for regular daily websurfing and not even looking for commentary on the game and I see the cynical comments, "I am getting sick and tired of all the scanning" being the most common among them. If you have not played the game then you may not get this so let me explain. In the game, in order to improve the technology of your ship and your crews tools, you have to scan and mine planets that you visit. A large amount of people found this tedious and time consuming and made sure everyone knew about it. I hate it because I don't want to be the one that shouts back and has to be equally as obnoxious, but when I read those comments they drove me nuts. Part of me felt like they were trying to rain on my parade and part of me felt that they were flat out wrong. For me, scanning planets made perfect sense in a story perspective. It fit well with the overall feel of what was going on. Also, if you paid attention, you can tell that the game designers went to a lot of trouble to make the planets as scientifically plausible as possible. But of course, fanboys have to harp on the one thing they don't like and not look at everything in the big picture. I think what I am trying to say is for the love of god people, just try to enjoy things and don't go into something trying to think what you are going to tweet from your iPhone the second it is over. If you want to talk to me about something, bring thoughts, not snark.

I also want to massively thank Mike Norton for doing the above sketch of Mordin after I tweeted about it. I wasn't kidding Mike, I am going straight to your table with money in hand for one of these.

Oh and I know someone is going to mention it. Yes, the title of this post is grammatically correct. English degree yo!

You can do some of the work, you lazy bums!

While I am writing my next post (and it is going to be a long one since I have a lot to say about the topic), I'm hoping to get some help from teh intarwebs. Here's the deal. If you are reading this, than I want you to toss out a title, character, team, storyline, year of publication, anything. The first one mentioned that I can find buried in my longboxes will be the topic of an upcoming post. Basically, I want to read something, but I want it to be totally random and out of my control. So post a comment, send me a twitter, yell in my face, etc., and tell me what to read.