52 Pickup

For those of you who care: i.e. my friends who read comics.

Here's my thoughts on the 52 re-launch titles that DC Comics will be, um, re-launching in September.

I don't dread the re-launch. I don't celebrate the re-launch. It is what it is. We've gone through this before and it's hardly the end of the world, and eventually we'll accept the re-launch characters as the status quo. I'm not sure yet how much that status quo is even changing in Sepember.

The bottom line is that my DC consumption will be going down, but only slightly, and mostly because DC is providing me a jumping OFF point for several titles.

I'm looking for comments on these because I'm on the fence about a dozen or so titles, so you could sway my choice one way or the other.

Full lists of "buy" and "don't buy" titles after the jump:

OK, first the obvious, will-absolutely-get-regardless Superman and Legion titles: Superman, Action, Supergirl, Legion of Super-Heroes, and Legion Lost.

I'll include Superboy in that, but I'll may need to hold my nose a bit.

Also a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned is Static Shock. I'm still complete on the Milestone-derived titles, and it's also written by a frequent Milestone writer.

My biggest surprise in the list of new titles: Resurrection Man. It's back with it's original writers, and I enjoyed it a lot during it's short run. So, that's a yes.

Ditto Animal Man.

The rest of the list I'm getting I don't have a lot to say about, other than I've picked most of them based on the writer or because something about it seemed intriguing. The rest of my "buy" list are: Batman, Batman and Robin, Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Justice League, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Justice League International, DC Universe Presents, Stormwatch. OMAC, Blue Beetle, Suicide Squad, Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE, Green Lantern: the New Guardians, and Justice League Dark. The last three on that list were the closest to not making the list.

And here's the cut-off line:

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OK, so I'm buying Batman and Batman and Robin, but not Detective or Batman: the Dark Knight. Why? I decided to add back a Batman book (I'd only been getting Batman and Robin), and decided Batman had more appeal to me. I may add the others, or I may drop Batman eventually. We'll see.

I'd dropped all the Bat-books about a decade ago because there were too damn many of them to keep track of (same reason I'd earlier dropped all X-books). That still seems to be the case, so these are all on the "don't buy" list: Batwing, Batgirl, Batwoman, Catwoman, Nightwing, Birds of Prey, Red Hood and the Outlaws.

OK, so why all the Lantern books except Red Lanterns? Well, that one probably came closest to the buy list of any of them. In the end, I find the Red Lantern Corps to be the least interesting of any of the rainbow lanterns, and I'm figuring this may be along the same line as the worst of the old Lobo books (all the gore, none of the humor). However, I have a harder time dismissing Milligan out-of-hand, so this one will probably get tried either digitally (when the price drops) or in trade paperback. I'll be looking for reviews.

I will not be looking for reviews of I, Vampire. Teen vampire fad pandering. If it had been the classic Andrew Bennett instead of a sparkly hunky teenager I may have given it a thought. No, probably still not.

I won't be getting Flash because I have little faith that Manapul can make the leap from artist to writer, and I think that Wally is the Flash they should really be using while Barry remained safely dead. I haven't been interested since Barry's return.

I think Brightest Day pretty much killed Swamp Thing for me, and little can live up to the Moore or Bissette runs.

I can't work up any enthusiasm for Fury of Firestorm, Green Arrow, Mister Terrific, Captain Atom, Savage Hawkman. They may get sampled, though.

Demon Knights - really? We needed another Demon story?

Teen Titans is pretty much dead to me. Maybe when Lobdell leaves they will get a decent writer.

I also don't care about Hawk and Dove, and even less about Liefeld. My bet is that this will be the lowest-numbered book to be cancelled, though maybe not the first.

No to All-Star Western. As long as we're just doing titles for trademark purposes, why not make this Weird Western Tales? That's the traditional Jonah Hex title, and a western set on the east coast is certainly weird.

The stuff that I have zero affection for the characters, and can't get excited by the creative team or the description: Grifter, Voodoo (who?), Deathstroke, Sgt. Rock and the Men of War, Blackhawks.

If something becomes a breakout critical hit, I'll have the cheaper digital issues to fall back on, or trade paperbacks.

So, "Yes" (initially) to 25 titles. I figured the other day that as of a few months ago I was probably getting around 30 DC titles per month. Hard to say since there were limited series in there, but those pretty much always come and go anyway. I can't count a more recent month since there have been so many recent title cancellations. I figure I'm either close to the same ballpark or down just a few titles. Sounds about right right now.

OK, Comments please! Convince me I'm wrong on some of these, one way or the other!

Happy Belated Birthday, Narf!

Aha! Now I know when Narf's birthday is!

Live blogging April 1st

Live blogging (sort of - at least as live as I manage) all the attempted April Fools jokes I note today. Let's see what I get caught by, what gives me a minor WTF moment, and what is caught immediately.

The default reaction is almost always "WTF?" until the right brain cell engages to remind me of the date.

• I got a notice from my Cubs Fans group on Facebook that Wrigley Field would be renamed "Trident Field". Brief WTF, but that was my first reminder of the date.


• Daily GizWiz podcast talks about a device to record MP3 files to vinyl records. I didn't get it when I first saw the title of the podcast because it loaded last night. When I listened this morning, though, they mentioned the date early on and I realized it was a gag. No foolin' here.


• A Facebook friend* announced she was married. She set this up well by announcing she was engaged a couple days ago. I'm assuming the former is a gag, and maybe the latter, but I don't know 100%. *Friend in this case meaning friendly acquaintance, as is often true on Facebook. Later update: both marriage and engagements confirmed as gags.


• Someone posted a printed note on the restroom door at work, saying that due to budget cutbacks the company would no longer stock supplies and so everyone should bring their own towels, toilet paper, soap. Caught immediately, of course, but I would have impressed by the commitment to the joke if they'd posted this on every restroom door. Nope.


• Yet another notice from a Facebook application saying Barack Obama had confirmed that I was a cousin. It rated a WTF.


• Pretty much all of Slashdot, as usual.


• Gmail Autopilot - Google always has April Fools jokes; this one probably isn't the only one.


• ... and it wasn't. CADIE on the Google home page.
  

Happy Birthday, Ellen!

It's another birthday post. Happy 28th to my lovely wife, Ellen!

Don't Touch the Green Beer!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I've had my corned beef and cabbage (lunch), and so I'm satisfied for the day. I celebrate any holiday that has a traditional food associated with it!

As for the green beer, I'm with Frazz:

As for dying the Chicago River green, that's probably the most natural it looks all year.

This post is also a test to see if the post shows up automatically, and in a timely basis, as a link on Facebook. The applications I've used before all were very slow to pick up blog posts. We'll see now.

Happy Birthday, Kalen!

Almost late, but I made up for it by wishing Kalen "Happy Birthday" a day early on Facebook, and then repeatedly through the day today in person.

Quick, spoiler-free, Watchmen review

I saw Watchmen tonight.

It looks great. And it is a reasonably faithful rendering of the graphic novel. Probably as good or better than anyone could have expected.

But, it still has to deal with the limits of a motion picture, and of a reasonable length for a film. So, it sacrifices a lot of the depth. Everyone should read the graphic novel either before or after seeing the movie. Probably better before, or maybe both!

The acting ... was not great. It was pretty stiff at points. Malin Ackerman looks perfectly like Laurie Juspeczyk, and is often pretty adequate acting, but has off moments. Jackie Earle Haley does a very good job as Rorschach. I always like Matt Frewer (Moloch) and Danny Woodburn (Big Figure). Others aren't quite so good, seemingly reciting more than acting a lot of the time.

The production values were terrific at times (Rorschach's mask in particular, and Archie, and Blake' apartment), and cheesy in a few others. In particular, some set pieces (doors in particular) don't seem very substantial, like they are the foam pieces that they probably are rather than anything with weight. Bubastis wasn't a convincing as he could have been. And the Nixon nose prothesis was a bad joke, but may very well have been intended that way.

They did keep the meat of the story, though, and it more than carries the movie. I think it's well worth a watch for anyone, but again, read the graphic novel sometime in there as well.

I look forward to the planned extended version on DVD as it sounds like it will restore a lot of the bits that are sorely missed (in particular, the newstand scenes), and fold in "Under the Hood" and particularly "Tales of the Black Freighter".