I Want You!!!

Soooo...I've no more than got this damn thing up and running, than I'm gettin more ambitious.
This isn't meant to be a huge site or anything like that, but it can be a great place to exercise our collective creativity and express our opinions.
If you have any desire to write anything...reviews, rants, columns...e-mail me and let me know
ghoulardi@gmail.com

Exiles #37

Writer: Judd Winick
Art: Clayton Henry
published by Marvel Comics

I'm almost done with the stack of comics I bought 3 weeks ago...and never bothered reading. I suck. I suppose I should turn in my geek card.
Exiles isn't the newest or most original concept on the planet. A group of superheroes travels through time and alternate realities righting wrongs and protecting the timestream. It's Quantum Leap meets the X-Men. However, in the capable hands of ex-Real Worlder Winick, it's simply one of the best superhero books around.
This month, the Exiles are forced to fight one of their own, as Mimic is revealed to have an alien Brood egg growing within him. Problem is, since Mimic can copy their powers, they really don't stand a chance. Let's just say, it ends badly. Good read, though. I don't know if they're planning on keeping the book running after Winnick's imminent departure for his exclusive contract with DC...but they have some BIG shoes to fill if they do.

My Credo

I've had to modify my credo on behalf of one of my bestest friends.

All I ask out of life is happiness for me and mine...and that they stock Count Chocula at the grocery store.

If you can't tell, the Count Chocula part is the new addition.

Cool Stuff

If you go the website for Bombardier, there's this really cool thing called the Embrio. It's kind of like a Segway, except with one wheel and sci-fi styling. Plus, it's supposed to be capable of highway speeds...

There are also articles about it here and here and here and here.

I tell ya, they should put these on the road...sooooo damn cool.

New Mutants (vol 2) #6

Writers: Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir
Art: Mark A. Robinson
published by Marvel Comics

Back in the 80s, I loved The New Mutants. The book, especially during Bill Seinkowicz's run on the art chores, just kicked all kinds of ass. I still have a wall hanging of The New Mutants in my apartment.
So, it wasn't any surprise that I started buying the new book when it started up earlier this year. Sure, it's been a bit of a slow burner, but I think it's finally hitting its stride. This issue centers mainly around Dani Moonstar's guilt at preventing one of the new studenst from killing an anti-mutant terrorist. He leaves the school, reasoning that he might hurt someone else, and she takes it hard. In addition, they add yet another new character to the class, in the form of a newly emerged mutant who used to belong to the very same anti-mutant hate group.
I like the art...kinda chunky like Mignola, and sort of elongated and over rounded like a Don Bluth animated character. I'm not sure what else Robinson is done, but I think I'd be interested in checking it out.

Retardosity

My friend Towelie has submitted a word to urbandictionary.com.
Gotta love the bastard.

Click HERE to find out what retardosity is!

Runaways #7

Writer: Brian K. Vaughn
Art: Adrian Alphona
published by Marvel Comics

Runaways is a great fucking book. The concept alone just rocks. A bunch of kids find out their parents are supervillains, then set out to take 'em down. Then, since it's a sooperhero book, they find out some of 'em have strange powers.
Yup, it's based around the conceit that all kids think their parents are evil.
It's not that simple though. The Pride, the group that the parents are members of, think of themselves as heroes. They do evil things like human sacrifice, but they believe they're doing good.
Honestly not much happens in this ish, except some talking and the kids foiling a convenience store robbery. Sure, it sounds like typical Nu-Marvel, but it ain't. This is about as good as it gets.
Dammit, they need to put out a trade of this so I can hook more people on this book. Like, NOW.

New X-Men #148

Writer: Grant Morrison
Art: Phil Jiminez
published by Marvel Comics

At least there's still one great book with the word X-Men in the title. Grant Morrison's long been one of my favorite writers, in spite of the fact that I've never read The Invisibles. And his run on New X-Men has been nothing short of stellar.
At this point, the X-Men are pretty much done for. Magneto's crippled Professor X (again), possibly blown up Cyclops and the mutant thief Fantomex and sent Phoenix and Wolverine hurtling towards the sun in the remains of Asteroid M.
Plus, Magneto's taken over the island of Manhattan and is turning it into a new mutant nation, complete with a planned genocide of all the non-mutant residents.
Morrison likes to think big. Yessiree, he does. The X-Men have always been about saving the world, and Morrison does a good job of keeping the earth in peril. And, the X-Men as well. Wolverine's final actions in this issue are built on the hopelessness of his situation. And what happens next promises to be...BIG.
I can't wait.

Fantastic Four #505

Writer: Mark Waid
Art: Howard Porter
published by Marvel Comics

Mark Waid started off his run on FF in a somewhat uneven manner, with a goofy sense of high adventure and a wee bit of potty humor thrown in.
Then, it got dark. Real dark. Real quick. Waid made Dr. Doom more of a menace than he's been in years, highlighting the villain's ruthlessness and obsession like no other writer before him. Doom kidnapped Reed and Sue Richards' son Franklin and sent him to a hell dimension. He confronted Reed with the one weapon in his arsenal that Mr Fantastic didn't have: magic.
It ended badly, of course, with Doom sent once again to his final reward (as if that's gonna happen) and Reed horribly scarred. The nations bordering Doom's kingdom of Latveria, knowing that Doom was gone, attempted to march on the tiny country. Then Reed did something else unexpected. He declared himself king.
For the past couple of issues, the FF have been forced to deal with internal and international politics in a country that they don't understand. They've been hated. They've been hounded. They've had to fight off invasion.
Things aren't really going well, and after this issue, I can see them getting MUCH WORSE. I just can't believe that something this smart, bleak and dark is an all-ages book. Maybe Marvel's finally letting the FF grow up.

Birds of Prey # 60

Writer: Gail Simone
Art: Ed Benes
published by DC Comics

I love Gail Simone. Really. I do. She's one of the best writers in comics, and she's a chick. Plus, she's smart enough to be the brain behind Women in Refrigerators, one of the smartest criticisms of modern comics I've ever read.
Still, I'm not quite savvy with her run on Birds of Prey. Black Canary gets tortured by a guy hunting for Oracle...written by the woman who wrote the book on the rampant mistreatment of woman characters in comics. There's a story about loyalty in there, sure...but it always came back to the fact that Canary was getting tortured. Maybe it's unfair to think that Simone wouldn't use a plot device like that. Maybe I'm just spoiled by her fantastic runs on Deadpool and Agent X.
Issue 60 picks up with Canary on the mend and the Huntress disguising herself as Black Canary to meet with a senator who has some agenda against Canary's partner, Oracle. Things don't go well at the meet, and by the end of the book things look downright dismal for the girls.
Solid characterization seems to be the rule of thumb on this book. These women have history and it shows. There is a bit of humor in the book...but not as off the wall wacky as Simone's previous work for Marvel. It's a good read, but I still don't have a tack on whether or not I'm going to get this book regularly.

Uncanny X-Men #432

Writer: Chuck Austen
Art: Philip Tan
published by Marvel Comics

Chuck Austen is trying way to hard to become Chris Claremont. Sure, Claremont perfected the X-Men back in the 80s. Since then, though, the man's been so off his game he's become unreadable. And this mess is rapidly becoming the same.
In this ish, we find out Nightcrawler is the spawn of a demon-like being called Azazel who's supposedly Satan. Of course, EVERY demon in the Marvel Universe is supposedly Satan. Yawn. Isn't like half the Marvel Universe related to Satan? Or is that just Stan Lee?
In a parallel story, the Juggernaut travels to Canada to visit Sammy the fish-boy and finds out that Sammy's dad is an abusive bastard. Juggy throws down on the dad, and Alpha Flight show up to deal with the Jugster. Hopefully, next ish is Juggalicious laying the smack down on Canada's premeire super team. Because I am sooooo close to dropping this book.

Movies You Really Should Own (and Don’t) Volume 1: The Car

(1977, directed by Elliot Silverstein)
available on DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment

When I picked up the DVD, I thought The Car was a TV movie. I’d seen it quite a few times on TV, and I’d loved it then. In fact, the movie had been theatrically released against Star Wars – and tanked horribly.
As a TV movie, robbed of its widescreen grandeur, The Car is a serviceable 70’s devil movie. I’m fond enough of the genre to own some of its classics (Satan’s Cheerleaders, The Devil’s Rain), so it was a no-brainer to pick it up.
Man, was I in for a treat. In its original aspect ratio, with its scenic vistas and expert framing, The Car is a classic of the horror genre. There is an element of remoteness to the framing of many of the shots – even though there are a group of characters, they are all alone. They live alone, they die alone…and in the case of Deputy Luke (Ronny Cox), they weep alone. Mr. Barbra Streisand himself, James Brolin performs quite adequately in the lead, but it is the titular Car that is the true star of the show…It roars, it gets pissed, and it kills (quite frequently).
Is the car driven by the devil himself? Well, the film wisely never answers that question. It ends, as it should with a big question mark.
The DVD offers little in the area of extras. There are widescreen and full frame versions of the movie, but what kind of fucking idiot wants to chop up a beauty and watch the full frame? There is also a theatrical trailer that I’m guessing was probably seen by twenty people back in 1977. Other than that, you get nuthin’. No goodies. No animated menus. No director commentary. Still, if you can find it for under $20, I wouldn’t hesitate to pick it up at all.

Things I'm Thankful For

It's Thanksgiving, and I'm home alone with my cat. I could have gone to Chicago and hung with my sister and brother in law. I could have gone to about half a dozen friends' houses.
I didn't, though. Why? Because I really felt the need to just relax and enjoy and think about what I'm thankful for today.
Besides, I got to watch the Macy's Parade with the sound off and listen to the Flaming Lips...which just fucking rocks. For some reason, their music is just the perfect accompaniment to the Macy's parade.

I'm thankful for many things this year. Last year was kind of rough, and this year has more than made up for it.

I'm most thankful for my friends. I've met many wonderful new people this year.
My friend Sherri deserves special mention because she helped introduce me to many of the people I've gotten to know online. She took it upon herself to reach out and befriend me. She helped teach me mIRC. We cause trouble together. She's a helluva lady and I love her lots.
James in CT is another person I've met online. The moment we started corresponding, we both just KNEW we'd be friends. We're dangerous together. I shudder to think what would happen if we truly put our heads together.
Ava in CA is another new friend. She's full of life and joy, and her enthusiasm for anything is just so damn infectious you can't help but feel it to. She's wonderful and kind and puts up with so much nonsense from me, I'll have to nominate her for sainthood.
Jennah in GA is another person I met via IRC. She's a hockey fan (I'm in her fantasy hockey league...and beating her ass [for now]), so we have that going for us, but she's also got great taste in music and movies.
I don't even know his real name, but Nordling from AICN is another person I've gotten to know pretty well. He was sure he'd hate me, and pleasantly surprised to find out he couldn't. I can respect any man who can overcome preconceptions. Besides, his favorite movie is The Seven Samurai. How can you not love that?
Of course, there's always a token foreigner, and Dan in the UK constantly surprises me with new wrinkles on his character. He's simply hilarious, and he's a hell of a nice guy to boot. He's quite the artist as well...someday that boy might be famous or something...
Morgan and Danny over at the Malibu Cafe have turned out to be friends. My coworkers and I started going over to the bar because it was new and they had great drink specials. Now, I can just go over there and sit and watch TV with them. I'm just plain welcome, all around. Can't forget Amanda the night bartender, either. We've sat around and talked while customers never showed up too many times...
Speaking of bars...Jocelyn over at Pockets deserves mention. She hadn't seen us for almost 3 months since we started going over to the Malibu, so she called up my work to yell at us. When I answered, she couldn't muster up the anger to yell at me, and just asked me to come over. Then, she tore the shit out of my coworker Byron. Gotta love a gal that loves you.
I'm just as thankful for my old friends. The whole Kent/Warren Crew: Italian Joe and Renee, Donnie and Jenn, Stoner, Griffin, John and Bonnie. Love 'em to death, and I'm a proud participant in all the craziness that is their lives. I wait with baited breath for Bonnie to give birth so that John can raise another Republican to fight against the tyrannical liberals that are his friends. Of course, the rest of us will be there to make sure the child learns THE TRUTH. Hehehe
I'm grateful for my coworkers and friends in Columbus. DDP, Kaveman, Greg the Keg, Byron, Higgins, Nate, Jake, Brian from UPN 53, Brad, Shane, Scott...all of 'em. They bring light to the bleakness that is Central Ohio. The staff of the Arena Grand has taken it upon themselves to adopt me as a member of the family, as has the owners and staff of Thai Taste and the Sher E Punjab restaurant. People like them make me appreciate that I live in a city with a big heart and a lot of great people.
I am thankful for my family. I enjoy my sister and her husband. I love my nephew to death. Watching Henry grow up just fills me with joy. He's such a good kid, I can't believe he's related to me.
I am thankful for my brother, because he's the only person on the planet who can crack me up 24 hours a day, seven days a week AND drink me under the table without breaking a sweat. I'm going to visit him in Vegas this coming year. I must. And when I do...evacuate. You have been warned.
I'm thankful for my cat. Bela might be infuriating as hell sometimes, but he also loves me lots. He's particularly happy with me when I sleep on the couch and he can curl up in the crook of my legs.
I'm thankful for other things, but they don't seem important after family and friends.