Comics!

Years and years ago I read comics, but I fell out of it because I was cash strapped and it was hard to keep up with everything. With the reboot at DC, I figured now was as good a time as any to dip my toes and see what, if anything could catch my eye.

These past two weeks I've read:

American Vampire - #1 - #3
Detective Comics #1
Justice League #1
Ressurection Man #1
Secret Six #1 (2008)

I still have to read:

American Vampire #4-#5
Animal Man #1
Demon Knights #1
Green Arrow #1
Mister Terrific #1

And I've just ordered the first omnibus of Secret Six, which contains #1-#7 which was roughly the same price as buying the individual issues on their own and Mr. Murder is Dead. I hope to do a more detailed review of the comics I have read tomorrow, but in the mean time I want to do a quick review of Comixology, an online store where you can acquire digital copies of various DC Imprints - DC New 52 (for easy reference), DC Comics, DC Universe and Vertigo.

-Pros
1. Ease of acquisition.
Due to the hoopla surrounding the DC reboot, it can be difficult to acquire some of the new 52 issues, and if you can find them, some stores are real asses and jacking up the price on them because of the demand. These are just purchase and download: it saves you the trouble of calling around or running around to no avail and you'll only pay the list price, which is nice!

2. The comics are really high res.
I have a 23" monitor and the artwork is simply gorgeous on these. The files are all high res and nicely fill up the screen without becoming blurry. It's a great way to read them!

3. Easy to use reader.
There's a simple little tutorial and you get the hang of it right quick.

4. You can access your comic wherever you have a connection.
There are readers for both the iOS and Droid platforms and you can access the PC/MAC version right through the store. Convenient!

5. You can support your local comic book store!
You can sign up through your local store and the store will get a percentage of the sale. It's likely not the same as what they'd get if they sold you the actual comic, but it's still nice to be able to support them. :)

Cons
1. The website can be a bit slow to load.
The comics all pop up as rather large thumbnails and the site isn't always the most responsible. I wish you could load as a list instead, it'd be quicker and easier to browse.

2. The website (at least in Firefox) seems to have issues closing out once the credit card processes. Mine seems to hang, but I'll get the e-mail confirmation that the payment went through and the comics will be there. Odd, and minorly annoying. I haven't tried it in IE yet.

3. You don't have a physical comic.
Reading on a monitor will never be the same as holding the comic book in your hand.

4. Although you can read it on a mobile device, it's not as accessible.
Unless you have an iPad, I don't know how viable it really is. You have to scroll panel to panel which I find distracting. There's an option to view the full page when you first turn to it and before you turn away from it, but it's not the same.

All in all, I'd say the service is probably best for getting the one-off comic to check it out. My local store offers a subscription service if you read 5 or more titles. If I decide to follow 5 series - and I may well might (I'm already at 4 on my list) I'll probably join my local stores subscription list to make life sane, but I can still see myself using this for the one off that I want to check out. I'd say this is a nice alternative to a brick and mortar store if you don't have ready access to one, but it just doesn't replace it - you don't get the physical copies, you don't get the benefit of the advice and recommendations of the staff, you don't get access to the comic community either - and it's them that will turn you on to titles you otherwise wouldn't have considered. Pretty much my entire list above has come about due to the recommendations of several people, and I have yet to be disappointed! At the end of it, I'd say this is a nice supplement to a store, but can't really replace it.

My grade: B

Ride: Star Tours The Adventure Continues

Depending how into Disney you are, you may/may not know that Star Tours closed for renovation some time ago. The grand re-opening is set for June 3rd, but today me and 2399 other people (1200 winners and their guest) got to head out to Disneyland before dawn to take a special preview of the ride.

Let's take a look!

After walking through an eerily empty park - they let us in before the park opened, we were taken through a ridiculously long queuing area (which for sake of park guests hopefully won't be quite as insane when the ride proper opens) we were greeted with the "Private Event" sign; it felt kind of neat to walk past it (and it explained to other Guests in the park just why there were tons of camera crews and the like)

Once you made your way into the main waiting area, you got to see your new StarSpeeder, complete with C3PO and R2D2! They took the notion of a spaceport to heart - there was an arrival/departure board, announcements about the baggage claim, an illegally parked rental craft outside (with license plate THX for the insiders who get the joke) and even TSA-like announcements reminding you to not take packages from strangers. Deeper into the waiting area, Captain Rexx from the original ride was even there for you to view for those who have fond memories of your former captain - it was a nice balance of new and nostalgia.

This time around there are 4 40-person shuttles, so loading goes pretty quick. I'd say we were in the second group of shuttles to ride: they started operating the ride about 8:55 and we were out of there by probably 9:10 or so at the latest, so they load pretty quick.

The big hype behind this ride is that there are 52 alternate options available. I think this is a good thing and a bad thing. On the bright side, it'll definitely give the ride some extra life as you have incentive to ride it again and again. On the down side, I thought the story felt much more disjointed than the previous ride did. It had a funny moment or two, but I couldn't tell you exactly what had happened, unlike the previous version which really did feel like a properly told story.

The 3-D was beautifully rendered, though those who get motion sick may want to be weary, I found myself closing my eyes for a few minutes towards the end trying to calm my stomach a little.

All in all, the experience itself is very much a new, shinier version of the original. Fans of the original should enjoy this, and die-hard fans of the original should warm up to. Personally, I enjoyed it enough that when the line calms down (i.e. I can get on it in an hour) I'd go on it again, but I wouldn't wait in the super-long lines that you know are going to occur this summer.

Whether you should make the wait I'd say depends on how much time you have at the park and how much you liked the first. It's a fun ride, but not necessarily worth spending half your day waiting for.

My grade: B

Movie: Priest

I am a Karl Urban fan. I first started watch him back on Xena some 13+ years ago. I went to my first ever fan convention so I could hear him talk. He was hysterical, warm and gracious and I've been hooked on him ever since. Movies like the 2009 Star Trek Reboot (He's Dr. McCoy) proved to the larger world just how good of an actor he is, but real fans of his know one very true fact: he loves making shit movies. Oh, he's not trying to make bad movies, but his love of sci-fi and fantasy and comics leads him to make some rather dubious choices sometimes. Doom? Anybody? Or what about Pathfinder? (I picked up that last one for $2.98 after a sale and a few bucks on a gift card and that was still too expensive). If you're a fan of his, you have to embrace the fact that you're going to see some bad films.

So when I saw the trailer come out for Priest, I immediately threw out all the things I looked for in a good film and settled in to see something cheesy.

Genre: Comic-Book (Manhwa - Korean comics, actually), Action - Adventure, Horror, Western

Rating: PG-13

Official Description:

  PRIEST, a western-fused post-apocalyptic thriller, is set in an alternate world -- one ravaged by centuries of war between man and vampires. The story revolves around a legendary Warrior Priest (Paul Bettany) from the last Vampire War who now lives in obscurity among the other downtrodden human inhabitants in walled-in dystopian cities ruled by the Church. When his niece (Lily Collins) is abducted by a murderous pack of vampires, Priest breaks his sacred vows to venture out on an obsessive quest to find her before they turn her into one of them. He is joined on his crusade by his niece's boyfriend (Cam Gigandet), a trigger-fingered young wasteland sheriff, and a former Warrior Priestess (Maggie Q) who possesses otherworldly fighting skills. -- (C) Sony

[For the record, Karl Urban plays Black Hat - the human face of the vampires and Stephen Moyer of True Blood fame plays Owen, Priest's brother]

The Review:
 By now you've probably seen the reviews: that it's loud, that it's derivative, that it's full of bad writing and cliches: totally, utterly, completely true. Hell, the line "It's a trap!" is the literal second line of the movie and my other favorite gem was "If you're not committing sin, you're not having fun." The special effects are so-so at best; some of the scenes look like utter CGI and during a crucial moments you're pulled out of it by the size of explosion in comparison to the amount of explosives that they're shown to have on hand. The vampires themselves (which in this universe aren't human at all, with the exception of Black Hat, but he's a special case) look like rejects from Alien and the music is generic.

And yet, the movie decidedly isn't a total loss: there's some interesting ideas in there: I love the notion of a dystopian society ruled by an autocratic Catholic Church - there's a great scene where Priest goes to confession and you can tell that it's a computer having the confessor (in this case the Monsignor that you see telling Priest if he goes hunting he'll be ex-communicated) cite out whatever it feels like is appropriate for the situation, you can see it there calculating what it will say based on what has been input -and another scene where everyone stops in their tracks to make the sign of the cross at a predetermined time when a signal lit up and the phrase "To betray the Church is to betray God." is heard often- of course, nothing particularly interesting is done with this premise, per se, but it's still a neat set up.

Really though, if you're going to watch it, you need to go in to watch it for the camp. There's a hysterical scene where Black Hat is literally conducting a massacre as Bach's Funeral Mass is playing in the background. You can't see that and not laugh. It's just impossible to take seriously. The scares are telegraphed and not that scary, there's a tiny bit of gore, but it's rather minimal considering the genre (though less surprising in face of the rating). Some of the talky parts do drag (you see them trying to set up something between Priest and the Priestess- whom are both celibate, it almost looks like she's enjoying herself too much just handing him a Crucifix from That Day) and you don't really care about the characters much- I was personally rooting for Black Hat, not only because it's Karl, but because I found the Sheriff obnoxious (Priest "If she's infected, I'm going to kill her." Sheriff: "I won't let you do that!!11!!") and quiet frankly, Black Hat was having fun. Not that the others were supposed to, but the almost over-the-topness of the performance helped give the film some levity it needed.

Priest is not a good movie. It's a bad movie. Everything that it has been accused of being, it is. And yet, if you go into with the right mindset: that you're going to see something cheesy, it's fun. And for that reason and that reason alone...

My grade: B

Book: Wicked Bugs

Amy Stewart has been doing a lot of promotion for “Wicked Bugs” on NPR lately. A devoted listener, I was hooked during the interview and when I got home called up Amazon and picked it up, the mix of science and human interest being right up my alley.

Genre: Non-Fiction, Science

Official Description :

Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon’s Army & Other Diabolical Insects

Amy Stewart

ISBN: 978-1-56512-960-3

“In this captivating look at the sinister side of the natural world, Amy Stewart uncovers more than one hundred of our worst insect enemies – creatures that infest, infect, and generally wreak havoc on human affairs. From the world’s most painful hornet to millipedes that stop traffic, from “bookworms” that devour libraries to Japanese beetles that munch on our roses, Wicked Bugs tells the stories of bugs gone wild.

Here is a captivating mixture of history, science, murder and intrigue that beings – but doesn’t end – in our own backyards.”

The Review

The author starts out by stating she’s not an entomologist, just a “writer fascinated by the natural world” and I think the book is enhanced for it. She does a good job explaining how the creatures do what they do without it feeling too technical or dumbed down, and the stories she shares about their interactions with humans are varied too, from the gross to the humorous.

There are no photographs here; instead there are some lovely etchings/sketches of some of the insects. For the squeamish, this is likely a plus. I’m torn. I appreciate the art, but I think that insects can beautiful and some have coloration/markings that have to be seen to be believed, so I’d personally preferred photographs. Your mileage may vary.

I think at the end of the day this is a good book to thumb through – read the bits that catch your eye and skim through others. Some sections become laundry lists of insects with paragraphs that just describe how they work without the human factor, and I think those parts do drag some.

I’d recommend checking out the preview pages up on Amazon, the book stays largely in the same vein throughout, so if you that you’ll definitely enjoy the book.

My grade: B

Recipe: Nestle Toll House Cookies

Baking cookies, in addition to being relaxing and tasty, can be a nostalgic activity. I myself remember a time at camp during winter holiday where we were having ridiculous storming outside and to distract us campers, the camp owner's wife took us back to her place and had us bake cookies to pass the time. And when we bake cookies, a natural starting point for many are Nestle Toll House cookies - the recipe's right on the bag, and it's classic.

But is it any good?

The Description

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
• 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 375

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

The Review

As far as baking goes, this recipe is pretty well foolproof and beginner friendly, which makes it nice for those who simply don't bake very often. This recipe is also incredibly versatile: you can play with the fat, sugar, and flour and create endless variations depending on personal taste. Alton Brown (Good Eats) demonstrated this in the episode "Three Chips for Sister Marsha" where in he made chewy, crispy and cakey cookies all from the same base recipe.

On the other hand, the cookies just aren't my favorite. They're good, but not always the most memorable. Personally, my current favorite recipe is an adapted version of Jacques Torres' http://nyti.ms/16tCgQ - it has a better texture and more depth of flavor (it's also more complex and more time consuming) in my opinion. That said, cookies are are very personal choice. My mom loves loves loves Tollhouse and when she wants a fresh cookie, this is what she wants me to make. And really, I have no issues with obliging with that request. I've made this recipe so many times now that I've got it memorized making it a nice, no fuss recipe when I just want to relax and tune out the rest of the world.

At the end of the day, nostalgia I think helps elevate the recipe from good to great.

My grade: B (A if you factor in nostalgia)

Video Blog: Atop the Fourth Wall (AT4W)

Today's review is a newbie-friendly vlog that introduced me to the awesomeness that is That Guy With the Glasses. We'll be taking a look at Atop the Fourth Wall: Where Bad Comics burn. A fun little blog that's rather friendly to comic neophytes as is it to the biggest of comic nerds.

Genre: Comic Books

The Description:
[Note: This is taken from the shows theme song]
"Welcome to Atop the Fourth Wall where bad comics burn.
Linkara is going to teach you all a lesson you won't learn.
Grotsky you're not the smartest, Liefeld you're not an artist.
Anyone whose had a bad comic published, it could be your turn..."

The Review:
The thing I enjoy the most about this vlog is that as much as it is about comics (and it IS about comics) it's a vlog dedicated to good, solid criticism. This is a vlog that looks at insane logic, bad artwork, poor continuity and points out why something is just so bad its bad, or why certain plotlines or arcs are just downright infuriating when compared against the characterization of this person or that. He makes sure to give you just enough background so you can follow along without being lost, which makes this very accessible to the general internet viewing public.

This blog isn't about hating on something just to hate on it. It isn't mindless ranting. Heck, he doesn't swear in his blog because he doesn't see a need for it, which I admire, even if I have no problems with swearing in this format.

My major criticism is the serialized story-arc he has running through the show. I get that's kinda of appropriate for the genre and he's clearly having a good time, I just don't find it entertaining. That said, for the most part it runs at the beginning or end of a piece so doesn't bog the show down. The other point of contention is that sometimes it does feel like the reviews can kind of blur together, especially when it come to certain series, but it's easy enough to skip the reviews that you aren't interested in and watch only the ones that catch your eye.

Whether or not you're into comics, this is an enjoyable vlog to watch and I recommend checking it out. The shows do tend to run about twenty minutes so keep that in mind if you're in a rush.

My grade: B

Atop the 4th Wall updates late Monday or Tuesday afternoon on http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/ or on Monday afternoons on his own blog http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/