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