Monday, November 22, 2010

This Is Entry 177: Further Coming Attractions

This post yet another update on stuff that is coming to this here ol' Blog, along with Random Photos, Really Cool Old Ads & The Hot List, here are some other stuff to look forward to:

A Moment of Awesome: With most of the other stuff I've named for the Blog the name is somewhat self explanatory. With this I will give the viewers a moment of something I think is awesome. Why viewers & not readers? Well....

LFW TV: For awhile I've toyed with the idea of doing filmed segments for the Blog. The idea originally started out as a monthly web series, things were prepared for such a thing (like me buying a video camera among other less expensive things) but as time went on my ideas were bigger then my ability so the series idea has been done away with/devolved. It's being replaced with a more general umbrella idea called LFW TV, the Moment of Awesome thing would be under this umbrella as with any other filmed stuff I'd do. There wouldn't be any real schedule for LFW TV but there are some other ideas for what would come out as part of this.

A more text based upcoming post is one about Stan Lee, this is something I've been thinking about recently. It won't be a post about "The Man" himself (a recap of career, etc.) but just some thoughts about about my feeling regarding him & some other connected to him. When I'll put this up? I don't know.

TWe are about a little over 20 entries until Entry 200 which most likely will happen some time early next year. Not exactly sure what I'll do for that post but it will be something special.

until time: Stay Jazzy, Everybody!

- Brian

Saturday, November 20, 2010

This is Entry 176: Somebody Save me!

This time I'll be talking about:

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And it's last season. After 10 season they are closing up shop so this season must the best season ever, right?

Well, no. At least not to me anyways. I stopped being a regular viewer of the shows a few seasons ago. Why? I just lost interest but I'd check in from time to time to see what was going on. But I thought since it was the last season I'd watch it more often to see how the close everything out. Not sure I like how they are doing things.

One thing that I've been seeing is they are bringing more & more recognizable names. Not in the terms of actors but in names of characters. why just the names? Well, I don't recognize those characters as the ones from the comics. Now I know Smallville does have it's own continuity so they can't be how they are exactly in the comics. But half of the time the character is so changed to fit into Smallville's continuity that they don't seems like as the character, just someone with their name.

2 people they have gotten right is Lois Lane & Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) mostly because they gave them more then one episode appearances & then guest spots later on. Kara (Supergirl) was good since she didn't seem to change that much. The best translation might be the Legion of Super Heroes (but they might of been because Geoff John had a hand in that episode). The stuff with Brainiac was pretty good also but then they developed the character over a series of appearances.

The other people that have shown up I didn't have enough time to establish a character before they were never seen again. (I would have liked to see more with Black Canary, you do have Green Arrow on your show!). Last season, they introduced the Justice Society which I thought was cool (again with Johns) but I wanted more & I doubt I'll get more (They had some more with Hawkman this season but that's probably all I get from that group).

With this season there seemed to be another characters from the comics plopped into the show: Mera, The Suicide Squad, Slade Wilson, Cat Grant to name a few. I heard rumors of Booster Gold & Blue Beetle showing up, too! But I'd rather not see people from the comics then see lesser versions of the characters show up.

Another thing I not too keen on is I feel like they are trying to do too much. They know it's the last season so they are trying to do everything they ever wanted to do with the show. But too many story lines ruin a show. Also, I would really like them to stop beating me over the head with the whole "Clark is unsure of himself & is afraid is going to screw up something" subplot. I thought this was already covered in earlier seasons. I know why they are doing this but I wish they were handling it in a different way.

Smallville is not the show it started out as. It only has 1 cast member from the 1st season still on season 10 (That's Tom Welling, who plays Clark Kent but then you can't have a show without him).Over the last decade the show has been good, been ok & been bad. This last season is turning out for me to be ok with a leaning towards bad. But It's not over it might turn out to be ok with a leaning towards good. We'll just have to see how the series ends.

Until next time, Stay Jazzy everybody!

-Brian

Thursday, November 18, 2010

This is Entry 175: Batman & Captain America

As I've been thinking of Batman lately, I've started to think about how much he & another comic book character have in common. That character is Captain America.

- Both were created & first published during the early 20th century (Batman in 1939, Cap in 1941).
- Both have and/or had teenage boys as Sidekicks (Robin & Bucky).
- Both have had sidekicks that had seemingly died in explosions only to have them return years later alive as enemies (Jason Todd as The Red Hood, Bucky as the Winter Solider). There is a difference here: Bucky came back to side of good, Jason has not.
- Both have recently seemingly died themselves but didn't & it was revealed that their "deaths' had something to due with time travel.
- After their "deaths", their original sidekicks stepped & took on the role their mentor had held (Dick Grayson became Batman, Bucky became Captain America). When the original came back, neither of them had the person give up the role & went on to create a similar role from themselves (Bruce Wayne is now maybe the Batman of the World & Steve Rogers is known as Captain Rogers).
- Both have have last names that could be first names (Wayne & with Cap if you took off a letter: Roger).
- Both use to carry guns during the early part of their careers but don't anymore.
- Both are expertly trained fighters.

About this time in my thought process It sort of broke down into minor comparisons but there was few I thought were interesting. If I think of any more interesting comparisons between I post them.

Until next time: Stay Jazzy, everybody!

- Brian

Monday, November 15, 2010

This is Entry 174: The Return of RCOA!

As mentioned in Entry 171, I lost a chunk of my files when my computer decided to crap out on me & among those files were the Ads' I had scanned in for my Really Cool Old Ads project. Today I started in the re-scanning process.

As I've probably said before the Really Cool Old Ads project is me going through my comics & find ad's I think are really cool & old. :) Most of these ads will be coming from the Mid 1960's & up to the Mid 1990's. I've seen a distinct drop off of really cool ads in Comics during the late 1990's & in to this present decade. But if I find any ads' that I think are cool I'd post them, too.

Many of the ads I've found can be divided into a few different subcategories: Toy Ads, Video Game Ads, TV Ads, Hostess Ads, Mail Order Ads, Public Service Announcements, Marvel House Ads & DC House Ads. A "House Ad" is an ad made by the company (Marvel & DC) to advertise their only products (upcoming comics most often).

I'll most likely begin posting these Ads in the next months barring an unforeseen events.

Until next time, Stay Jazzy!

- Brian

Sunday, November 14, 2010

This is Entry 173: More Batman!

So, this is going to be another Bat-Centric post. If don't like it, well... tough cookies!

This last Wednesday I read the concluded chapter of "The Return of Bruce Wayne" which seems kind of redundant since we already know he's return & had been running around doing stuff. This issue only fills in the gap of who the heck do he actually get back.

Well, he got back & I thought "Huh?" But then was my reaction to end of Final Crisis which was written by Grant Morrison, seen here making sure you know Superman has a crotch:

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This picture has nothing to do with what I'm talking about but it's odd photo of Grant Morrison (He's the bald one) I found on the Internet.

Now thinking about both series I come to another comparison that there is a part of the story gone (Now Wayne's return, this might be partly my fault since his return was also partly chronicled in other Bat Books (Batman & Robin being one of those books) that I didn't read but I don't think was the problem with FC I just think with that book the missing part of that series was in Morrison's head.

Now there might be a 3rd comparison or it just might be an off shoot of my first comparison: the book might be on a higher thinking plane. I found this with a number of Morrisons' more recent works. They seem to have some concept were you need to do some deep thinking about concepts to fully get what's going on.

I tried to explain what happen in the Return of Bruce Wayne #6 to my dad. Now I didn't completely understand the book but I thought I could explain what happened but not really why. My dad didn't under what happened, he thought it was just confusing.

That might be the best way to explain Morrison's writing: Confusing. Now are his books bad because they are confusing? No. At least they are getting you to think about stuff. They are bad comics that just leave you confused & all you can think about is how bad the comic you just read is & nothing beyond that. Confusing can be good & lead you to something more which in Comic Books that might lead you to buying more comic books. :)

That's all I go for this time. Until next time: Stay Jazzy everybody.

- Brian

Sunday, November 7, 2010

This is Entry 172: Holy Crap, Bat-Man!

Yeah, I went old school with the name, that's just how I roll. :)

But this post is about the Dark Knight Detective: Batman & how I've become burnt out on reading about him.

Going back a years or two, I started to read more Batman related titles, starting off with the whole "Battle for the Cowl" stuff which I sort of found pointless. Everyone knew that Dick Grayson was going to become the new Batman we didn't need the mini-series. We didn't need the tie-in books even thought I did like a number of them. I think the story could have been a 2, 3 part story line in one of the Bat Books. Then once BFTC was over a whole bunch of Bat Books were launched, I've read a number of them.

So, here we are again: more mini series. "Bruce Wayne: The Return" was good but kind of slow. "The Road Home" mini-series was pointless. It was put out out of order (Part 2 came out a week before Part 1 did.) I thought most of the stuff said in those books could have been down in the characters' own books. Sure, some of them don't have books so put out a one-shot book. Now with Bruce Wayne back (How exactly? I don't know, the story that told of his return isn't finished yet) & there will now be the "Batman Inc." stuff with a bunch more Bat Books coming out. Will I buy them? Not really. I might buy 1 or 2 of the half dozen that are on their way. I'm most likely give the new books I once over at the store & might wait to see what happens in the books. I've thinking of dropping some of the Bat Books I already read.

This a feeling not just for Bat Books, I'm thinking at the new year dropping some of the books I buy. Most for the reason they don't interest me anymore. Also, I need to cut back on my spending.

*Sigh*

I'm just kind of burnt out. I don't want to feel like I need to buy 8 books to just to know the whole darn story line. I should be able to get the full story in the one book I read & if I read the other books it should enhance what I have already read, not make me feel like I missed something since I haven't been reading a book.

I was getting burnt out on the Superman books after all "World of New Krypton" stuff but the books have now split off & I don't fell I need to read everything. I doubt the Bat Books will be doing that any time soon.

We'll see how it'll go over the next couple of months.

Until next time: Stay Jazzy everybody!

- Brian

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

This is Entry 171: Computer Problems

Happy Mid-Term Elections everybody! Hope everyone voted because if you didn't vote, you shouldn't be able to complain about what happens as a result. :)

This is just quick post to tell you all about what's happening with the Blog. I've recently been having some problems with my computer. Many thing where tried but in the end it came down to having the hard drive replaced. So, my hard drive was all bright shiny & new! It was no longer cluttered up with all those silly files! wait... that might've been a bad thing & it was, sort of. But before it all went to heck in a hand basket, files from the computer were backed up on 2 external hard drives. So, I didn't think I had lost anything & everything would go back to normal. I was wrong: when thing were reloading my computer not all files were saved. At least not all the files were saved on one of the external hard drives. One of the hard drives is locked & we don't know how to unlock it so my other files might be there & they might not be: I don't know.

So, what does these means for the Blog?

The 20 some odd "Random Photos" & the 70 some odd "Really Cool Old Ads" I had scanned in ready to go were among the items not found. :( So, it will not take me longer to get those up for you to see. You''ll eventually see those things just later then I had hoped.

Until next time I bid thy a Stay Jazzy!

- Brian