Non Sequitur Comic Panel

random word: Wombat


-Swinebread

Computer Problems

I can't Log into my email anymore; I think it's been hacked. If you have received an email from "me" on July 5th or later. It wasn't really from me. Basically, I've lost most of my contact info for all my connections. I'm in the process of setting up a new email account. If you wondering why I having emailed you back... now you know why.

Also, my CPU is in the shop for a couple reasons one of which being that a CD is really stuck in the disk drive.... (and yes I did try everything)


-Swinebread

Jr. No-No's

I'm thinking that playing Axis & Allies is NOT something that I should do in my household.

Little Swinebread would have to play Germany all the time so he wouldn't deveolop some sort of complex... and that, in and of itself, would make him absolutely develop one.

Can you imagine him creating an atomic bomb and using it in this game?! *shiver*

I guess I'll have to stick with Arkham Horror and Samurai Swords (formally known as Shogun).

I've had board games on the mind lately... not that I have the time or opportunity to play them...


-Swinebread

Weevils Wobble...

We've been catching up on the BBC's Doctor Who spinoff series "Torchwood" and are currently about halfway through the second season. Here's some of my thoughts on the series in general as tempered by those of my wife and kids--

The family consensus: this show is frustrating. It's frustrating because it's difficult to think of another example of a television show that swings so wildly between episodes that are sublime to those that are just plain awful. This show is incredibly erratic.

Much of the blame for this falls on series creator Russell T Davies. A lot of Who fans dislike Davies and credit him with some of the worst episodes of that show. The most frequent criticism is that Davies has a tendency to sway into ham-fisted melodrama and the lack of science fiction in much of his science fiction.

While this is true to a degree, I find it hard to hold much of a grudge against Davies. More than anyone else he's responsible for the revival of Doctor Who, a show that occasionally borders on fantastic. To my way of thinking he's earned the right to toss a few lemons at us.

Where Davies really drops the ball in Torchwood is in his envisioning of the main character of Captain Jack Harkness played by John Barrowman. As the character was introduced in Doctor Who he is an immortal, omnisexual imp from some sort of future Time Police. In "Torchwood" Harkness is more of an angry, omnisexual curmudgeon. The character's humor has been largely exercised for dramatic reasons to make him more of a brooding hero slumping under the weight of some dark secret involving his brother.

Here are my two favorite episodes of the series and why I think they work--

Episode 1x5: "Small Worlds." - The team investigates "fairies" who are protecting a small child. I especially love the subplot in this which touches very deftly on Jack's immortality and it's consequences but the fairies were menacing as a force of nature not entirely good or evil.

Episode 1x6: "Countrycide." - The team investigates a series of disappearances in the woods. Naturally it turns out to be a local village who slaughter and eat travellers every 10 years. A big rip off of American horror films but scary just the same.

Probably the two biggest clunkers of episdodes in my estimation --

Episode 2x4: "Meat." The team rescues a giant, regenerating sentient alien being kept alive in a warehouse so that a meat company can cut off chunks and sell them. Ham-fisted message and the alien looked horrible even by BBC standards.

Episode 1x12: "Captain Jack Harkness." Jack and Tosh are thrown back in time to a dancehall in WW2 England. Jack falls for the real Air Force Captain Jack Harkness from which he had stolen his name. The episode ends with a groanworthy scene in which the two Jacks dance in front of a room full of WW2 servicemen culminating in a romantic kiss that made no sense under the bland dialog between the two characters leading up to that moment.

When I see a picture like this, it reminds me that the sentiment that women don't like science fiction is total bullshit.


Image from this post at i09

-Swinebread

Name This Character

UPDATE: Randal Graves wins with Al Gorn!


-Swinebread

My wife is so awesome. I've been working a lot of overtime and she felt kinda bad for me so Mrs. SB bought me a couple of books to sooth my doldrums.


The first book is Yokai Attack! It's a nice guide to traditional Japanese monsters. I've always enjoyed creature tomes but this is the best one I've come across. It has the more famous yokai like the the onibaba, the Kappa and the Tengu but also contains weirder stuff like the woman with a mouth in the back of her head, the hand washing demon and the tree with human faced peaches. My personal favorite is the slash-mouthed woman. Yokai Attack is presented as a survival guide, but what really makes this work so well is that it concisely describes the various monsters while putting them in a cultural context that's easy for a westerner to understand. The readability of the test is due to the biracial husband and wife team that wrote the book. It's worth noting that the art is wonderful too. It's a nice cross of modern manga styles and traditional wood block printing. Highly recommended to creature fans and folks interested in Japanese culture.

Here is a video about the writers of Yokai Attack! (and uh Halloween in Japan)


Yokai Attack also makes a nice companion volume for fans of Japanese horror films.



The 2nd book Mrs. Swinebread got for me was a volume of Oishinbo (the Japanese Cuisine story). Oishinbo is one of the most popular manga series of all time. I was quite surprised that portions of it are now being adapted into english because, well, Oishinbo is about food. It had a huge affect on Japanese culture so I guess, now that I think about, it was just a matter of time for Viz to publish it. Now when I tell folks that comics can really tell any kind of story I'll have an edition of Oishinbo to prove it. One of the guys I work with is a Gourmet, and he's salivating to to borrow my this book once i'm done with it. here's copy from VIZ website:

Each volume of Oishinbo follows Yamaoka and his colleagues through another adventure on their quest for the Ultimate Menu. Now, the highlights from the hundred-plus volume series have been selected and compiled into A la Carte editions: bite-sized chunks of story arranged by subject that add up to a full-course manga meal!

Japanese Cuisine introduces us to the fundamental ingredients--rice, sashimi, green tea, and dashi (cooking stock)--that constitute the soul of the Japanese kitchen. In each story we learn about the proper preparation and presentation of different dishes, as well as their history and cultural significance. The result is a moveable feast of a book, as informative as it is engaging.

Now those of you that love food but say you don't like comics no longer have any excuse.


-Swinebread

Happy 4th of July

Have a safe, happy holiday to my fellow Americans and to rest of the world... I hope for Freedom, Peace, and Justice.

Yeah, I know that's a tall order.

and now for those of you that need something a little more patriotic and stuff:



-Swinebread

Karl Malden RIP

Karl Malden was real actor, not one of those lameos you get at the five and dime.




Don't Leave Home without 'em



-Swinebread

What's been going on in blurbs.

I’ve sworn off Marvel Comics… well, at least the pamphlet kind. I refuse to pay 4 bucks for a single comic book. Considering their new pricing model now, it seems like the best thing to do. I’ve found myself really tempted by Marvel’s 70th Anniversary titles and the Marvel Pets but I held firm and it feels good. On the other hand, I’m more open to picking up Marvel trades and Hardcovers. My comic shop had a big sale a while ago with either 50% off or a straight price of 10 bucks on hardcovers.

Because of this I picked up
Annihilation: Countdown Volumes One & Two. Great, well written cosmic adventures
Annihilation Classic. I just adore all these cosmic characters especially Rocket Raccoon
Marvel Monsters. A collection of old and new Kaiju-ish stories featuring creatures from Marvel’s age of monsters. The Devil Dinosaur and Fin Fang Four stories rocked.
Marvel Westerns. A collection of old and new stories featuring characters from Marvel’s Western line. The Hurricane story is probably the best Superhero,Weird Western I’ve ever read.
Marvel Visionaries: John Buscema. His early stuff, plus a random smattering of latter stories.


Speaking of cosmic characters, I really enjoyed the Annihilation stuff so much that I went out and bought Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy trades. I got most of them used at Powell’s. (My new goal is to buy mostly used and/or "on sale" comic trades as much as possible) Reading this new Nova series has been great. I’m fan of the original Nova series from way back in the 1970s, but I have been really disappointed with how he’s been depicted since. This current series finally achieves the cosmic potential that the Nova character has always had but was always ignored.


No More My New Comics?
I kinda figured what was the point since I’ve cut down to 0-2 titles a week. I guess I could do a monthly My New Comics but I’ve since fallen out of practice of doing it… It’s just not as much fun with the same few title every month.


The wife and I just watched Dororo. It’s a live-action Japanese adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s manga of the same name. It’s pretty good with all kinds of traditional Japanese monsters and sengoku period swordplay. If you’re interested in fantasy samural stories check it out.


I did see Star Trek but never did a review. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I loved how the film brought back some of the humor of TOS. There were a few story problems especially a bunch of coinkydink stuff that I noticed after I left the theater, but all and all, a very fun film. The only thing I straight up just hated were the engine rooms… that stuff looked just like something out of MST3K. My fears for this film and the Star Trek Universe were unfounded. I’m glad I was wrong. Now Paramount, DO NOT PUT KHAN IN THE NEXT FILM. Try something new please.


Several months ago, YouTube pulled my Devo, Beautiful World, video. It lasted a little over a year.


I’ve been watching Showtime’s new show Nurse Jackie…. It’s very entertaining and Edie Falco’s character here is much more interesting than Carmella Soprano ever was. Some nurses have problems with the show but what’s getting me down is the tiredness I have for ER/hospital shows… couldn’t we have a program about park rangers or Travel agents or science fiction writers… basically the networks and cable stations are Lazy because it’s easy to find the drama in cop, law, and hospital shows.


I happened to see Vol 1 and 2 of the 1990s animated X-men show last month, so I snapped these DVDs right up. Despite the fact that we've got Gambit and Jubilee, instead of Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) on the regular team, this is as close as we are ever gonna get to good adaptions of the comics. No extra features but that's OK because all the room on the disks went to ensuring the episodes are top quality.


But most of all I've been spending my time taking care of Swinebread Jr. Wow! It's been almost a year since he was born.


-Swinebread

The Two Jacksons

As we all know, the so-called King of Pop died. I certainly was never a fan and in fact was quite horrified by Michael Jackson. Regardless, his music was a significant part of my childhood. I was there for the whole music video transformation that Thriller started and I remember when a Michael Jackson video was an event not to be missed. I have to admit that he was a gifted singer and dancer, and he worked very hard to perfect his act.

Sure, I have lots of memories (just like most of you folks do) with his different his different songs and but what really gets me down is that I can't separate Jackson (his many surgeries, child abuse allegations, skin bleaching, and crazy behavior) from his music. Gone is the fun I had as a youngster being entertained by Jackson. It's like there were two of him. The memory of what he was and the grotesque parody he became.

I cringe everytime I hear his songs...

Well except Thriller... because Michael Jackson, it turns out, was a zombie after all. I guess he just needed his outsides to match his insides.

So maybe there really wasn't two Jacksons, and that's the saddest thing of all because now I realize that he was crazy the whole time.

here's the prisoner version of thriller:



On a comic book side-note (because I just gotta have one), of course we all remember the Thriller parody/homage in Dazzler #33 right?



-Swinebread

Miyazaki And Zombies and Scooby, Oh My!

Lots of geek stuff bouncing around my head today. Probably because I got to talk to Swinebread for a while yesterday and that always gets me thinking about this stuff.

The English language version of the trailer of Hayao Miyazaki's new film Ponyo surfaced yesterday. I had the pleasure of springing on my Miyazaki nut daughter leading to her watching the thing at least five times.

In the course of reading up on that flick she saw the rumor that Miyazaki may be making a rare public appearance at Comicon. Now I have her working on me to take a trip to San Diego. Sigh.



Even though I'm a fan of the Marvel Zombies (the first books were works of sick genius in my opinion) the stories have really petered out, predictably as the zombies got "cuddly." With that in mind the announcement that Marvel was bringing on some heavy duty zombie writers for the next iteration of the series raised my interest.

In particular David Wellington's "Monster" series of zombie books were all sorts of scary, so I can't wait to see what he does with the zombified Marvel heroes.



Even though I'm late to this party I have to say that Left 4 Dead is one of the best shooters I've ever played. I got the thing for Father's Day and it's bloody awesome. There's not a lot to the game other than trying to survive zombie attacks while you work your way through a city/ sewers/ base but what it does, it does really well.



Thanks to the library we're working our way through almost every animated version of Batman they have on hand. In the last week we've watched "Batman: Gotham Knight," "Batman: The Brave and the Bold Season One" and "Scooby Doo Meets Batman." Not surprisingly my kid's favorite was that last title. Even though they're older they do love them some Scooby.



I finished reading Brian K. Vaughan's "Pride of Baghdad" last week and you'll have to color me unimpressed. It's disappointing because I loved the concept of pride of lions escaping an Iraqi zoo during the initial U.S. attack in 2002.

I enjoyed the symbolism, heavy-handed as it might be but couldn't by into one of the book's central conceipts- Vaughan and his artist Niko Henrichon specifically riff off of the animation of Disney and the Disney practice of animorphism. Essentially they draw the lions very Disneyesque but then involve the characters in very adult situations. Call me a prude if you will but I found this off-putting.

--Dean Wormer
-

Random Comic Cover

Princess Pantha Gets her Man.


-Swinebread

News I Missed... A Jericho Comic!

Well, back in March Devil's Due Publishing announced that they had secured the rights to continue the Jericho story in comic book form. (See here). Obviously I missed that bit of pop news, proboably because i'm busy taking care of Swinebread Jr. As of yet, there is no mockup or cover to go from (it's due in October) but I'm cautiously optimistic despite the fact that the art for such projects can often be less than stellar.

Personally, I think a comic book is a great way to continue the story since Jericho was cancelled (Twice!). A comic gives one that visual connection to the characters that you just can't get with a novel. Plus, several other franchises have been succesfully continued in comic form. Some hardcore fans don't quite agree (see here) but for me it bodes well. I'm really interested in finding out more detail concerning the conspiracy to create the Allied States of America.

I do wonder though, if Dark Horse or Dynamite Entertainment might have been a better fit to publish a Jericho title as DDP are the same guys that are doing Barack the Barbarian.



There is a tiny rumble about a Jericho movie too, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

-Swinebread

Happy Father's Day

I so glad there is something wondeful to focus on this Sunday. Today is my first Father's Day! Little Swinebread Jr. is almost eleven months now and is absolutely into all kinds of mischief. Me and the misses have to watch him like a hawk.


-Swinebread

Graphic video of a woman shot On the Streets of Turan

I'm Sorry for the graphic nature of this image but I feel it's important that we all really understand what is happening.

These people are dying for things we take for granted.

Update Her Name was Neda

and her friend wrote this poem in her honor:

I'm here to tell you my sister died while in her father's hands
I'm here to tell you my sister had big dreams...
I'm here to tell you my sister who died was a decent person... and like me yearned for a day when her hair would be swept by the wind... and like me read "Forough" [Forough Farrokhzad]... and longed to live free and equal... and she longed to hold her head up and announce, "I'm Iranian"... and she longed to one day fall in love to a man with a shaggy hair... and she longed for a daughter to braid her hair and sing lullaby by her crib...

my sister died from not having life... my sister died as injustice has no end... my sister died since she loved life too much... and my sister died since she lovingly cared for people...

my loving sister, I wish you had closed your eyes when your time had come... the very end of your last glance burns my soul....

sister have a short sleep. your last dream be sweet.

via Huffington post



Text from here

A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house.

He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her.

But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes.

The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.

The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me.

Please let the world know.

Video at these link on the Huffington Post (note very disturbing)

scroll down to 2:37 PM ET

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/13/iran-demonstrations-viole_n_215189.html



with much sadness

-Swinebread

It's Offical... The Iranian Government Is A Dictatorship

The killing and repression are well underway. The protesters have the numbers but the goverement thugs have the guns.

How can they shoot their own people?




-Swinebread

Marvel House Ad 1986

-Swinebread