Tragedy in Colorado

Let me preface what I am about to say with, this is not a joke, this is not an attempt at humor, this is not political, not right-wing/left-wrong, or in any way about gun control.

What happened in Colorado early this morning at the Batman premiere was unthinkable and horrifying. I feel truly sorry for the people of that community, the friends and families of the victims and the victims themselves.

Listening to all of the different media outlets, of course all of the questions were, what do we do about gun control, how do we make movies theaters more secure, its this the nail in the theater industry coffin, and the biggest, why did this young man open fire, in a gas mask and a bullet proof vest in a crowded theater?

To be honest, I hope nothing changes because of this. Gun control debates are important and healthy and feeling safe when in a theater or anywhere else is paramount but this is a situation that nothing could have changed or prevented, you can’t predict what a psycho is going to do.

Then there’s the big question, why did he do it?  We will probably never know and obviously the guy was insane but the first and only thing that jumped in my brain was, I hope upon further investigation, his reason is Rush Limbaugh made me do it.

Again, let me clarify, I don’t care about Rush’s politics, that’s not what this is about, what I do care about is freedom of speech and responsibility for that freedom.

As Americans the most important right we have and the most powerful tool we have to affect change is free speech. To me, this is what truly defines liberty in America. If there is something that you think is unjust and needs to change, you have the right to express that without fear of persecution from the government.

That being said, to quote every thought on power, ever, with (great) power comes (great) responsibility. Obviously Rush is a conservative so naturally he is going to be opposed to liberals, that’s fine, not everyone agrees…that’s how this works. Also, I understand that Rush is an entertainer and needs to excite his audience. That’s how entertainment works. My problem with Rush, Glenn Beck, all of News Corp. and most political talk radio hosts is they cross a line into bat shit, shit house rat crazy and when you do that day, after day, after day, eventually the sane listener is driven away and only the bat shit, shit house rat crazy listeners are left.

Recently Rush shat out of the hole in his face that The Dark Knight Rises was an attack by the Hollywood Liberal Elite on Mitt Romney because the villain, Bane was a jab at his company, Bain Capitol and that the Dark Knight represented president Obama.

Not only is this not true, it doesn’t even make sense. Bane, the villain created by comic book writers specifically to destroy Batman, who did in fact literally “broke the bat” in Knightfall, was created in 1993. And Batman has been the Dark Knight since at least the forties.

I’m not saying that the suspect from this morning has ever listened to Rush but something pushed this deeply disturbed young man over the edge and to an insane person suggestion is a powerful thing.

I know I’m picking on Rush a lot here but truthfully, Right or Left leaning, commentators are going more and more for shock value and I believe they should have the right to say whatever they want, they should also have the decency to consider the weight, the impact and the ramifications they’re words will have.

Jeffery Jones, America’s Greatest Actor?

Yeah, remember me? I'm a bad ass. And...would you like to pose nude?

Ask yourself, what makes a great actor? For me, its some one who can stir an emotion in you no matter what type of role they’re playing. Some one who is so comfortable in any role that they make you believe that might actually be how they are in real life, some one who constantly gets work.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I realize the guy I am about to go into detail about is a registered sex offender for trying to get dudes to pose naked for him…real young dudes, and sold untaxed cigarettes and weed for some extra scratch but this isn’t about America’s greatest person, this is simply based on talent.

Jeffery Jones is listed as being in 66 roles over at IMDB, but I am only going to focus on the ones I have actually seen.

Now before I go on, some of you may be looking at that picture up there and thinking “damn, that guy looks familiar, I know I have seen him in a lot of things but I can’t remember what.” Well, lets see, You may remember him as Dick Nelson in Mom and Dad Save the World, one of the greatest movies of all time. You may remember him as Spike, a.k.a. The Devil in Stay Tuned, another of my favorites.  Perhaps you remember him as Eddie Barzoon, a character even more despicable than the Devil in The Devil’s Advocate, which is the only movie I don’t want to stab Keanu Reeves in.

Don’t remember him in any of those? Ok, fine, other than The Devil’s Advocate I can see how you may not  have seen the others but what about Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice? Yes, Bettle…woah…that was close.  Any way in Bettle…ya know, he played the weird as dad of the family that bought the house.  Still nothing huh?

Two words.

Ed.

Rooney.

Ed Rooney, The man could crush my balls into oblivion. Jeffery Jones’s most memorable role is easily as the crazy-ass Ferris hunting principal in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Now you remember. If you don’t, stop reading because you’re too young and too stupid to get anything about this blog.

Some other great movies this guy was in include The Hunt For Red October, Who’s Harry Crumb (a personal favorite and another overlooked gem), Ed Wood, The Gambler 3, Sleepy Hollow, George Washington 2: George Washingtoner, Howard the Fucking Duck and Transylvania 6-5000

Jones also has some extensive voice work credentials as well. Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man, Eek! the Cat, Batman, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters and Invader Zim.

So in summary, Child porn and untaxed cigarette selling, very, very bad but Ferris Bueller, and Mom and Dad Save The World, very, very good.

 

I got ink on my fingers and it feels gooooood!

Yes today is the day Star Trek came out and while I did plan to be first in line at my local theater, other responsibilities kept me away, but I will get out to see it and it will be fantastic. I am sure J.J. Abrams did a fantastic job, just as I am sure I want to plow Zoe Saldana, Winona Ryder, Jennifer Morrison and Rachel Nichols all at the same time. This article isn’t about that though.

Since I did have just a moment of free time today and I wanted to get out of my cave and enjoy the weather a little, I decided I would treat myself by wondering down to the local comic book store, Bent Wookie Comics. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure what the deal was with this place at first because when I was a kid there was a shop called The Comic Book Ink. that this dude Brandon worked at and my friends and I would go inthere constantly and feed our addiction. We probably bugged the shit out of him, but he was always kind of a local hero to us because he had had some work published. Then over the years as I was out of town traveling the world, I guess shops merged or closed or what have you, but the building moved and I guess the business changed names a couple of times, I dunno but this new comic shop, Bent Wookie is right beside the old Comic Book Ink building.

Any how, just like days of old (12 years ago) me and Zak walked in dove into the long boxes. I picked up a few Howard the Duck Comics, some Hitman comics, an Evil Ernie and a Preacher trade paperback mostly because I read anything byGarth Ennis who, let’s face it is becoming the Dave Grohl of the comic book world (which is a good thing). Any way I have been out of comics for a while and I was really excited to get back into it but alas, I didn’t know where to start. I LOVE the Punisher, Batman, Hellboy, Evil Ernie, Hitman, anything by Alan Moore, Sin City, Kick Ass, Jonah Hex and all the classics but the truth is I knew almost nothing of comics in the last 5 years.

Thanks to those guys over there though I was turned on to The Boys and The Man With No Name (to think I didn’t know there were comics based on Sergio Leone flicks) as well as some other great series. Now I will be broke most of the time, but damn i forgot how good it felt to hold a comic in my fingers. I read the entire Preacher trade tonight in one sitting because it was that damn awesome and I loved every second of it.

The whole experience made me nostalgic for when I was an Under-funded Comic Book Geek. It was great, I even dug into my old collection and started re-reading some of it. I think the best part of it all was to learn that there are still true comic books out there and people who still care about them. For a LONG time no one really gave a shit about comics except us pale kids that hated the sun so a lot of shitty writers and god awful artists got to skate by on shit work and there were a lot of terrible books. Then it went the opposite way, X-Men hit theaters, then Spidey then BOOM every fucking comic was going to be a movie and a lot of those were shit.

In the end I guess it is my fault for walking away, I lost my faith in comics and turned my back on it and it was my loss. Thankfully though thoes wonderful pages are still waiting for me and they welcomed me back with open arms.

So how about you guys? Are there any comics in particular that you like?

As a bonus, the days events inspired Zak and I to start into another book of our own, here is a little eye candy for ya.

As soon as we have something worth while to put up you can check it out in our comics section in the mean time check out Kung Fu Christ, Action Squad Assemble or Bernie Dead Rabbit.

Confessions of an Under-funded Comic Book Geek.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am an underfunded comic book geek. I have been for a little over 20 years. What does this mean? I will tell you. It means that I LOVE comic books with all of my heart but I can’t afford to invest heavily into my collection. With that being said I have always been the type of guy who pretty much only buys comics from “the long box”.

For those of you unfamiliar with comic book shops, when you walk into one the new comics and the collectors items are either on wall display racks or in the case of the valuable comics, in a glass case. The rest of the books, usually numbering in the 1000′s (at least in the good stores) reside in long, white, cardboard boxes called long boxes. These are the comics that are used, or are new back issues that didn’t sell. Generally these books can be had for under a buck a piece.

These are the comics that fuel my collection and for the most part they are the ones that aren’t that popular. This is one of the two primary reasons I like the types of super heroes that I do.

Let me expound on that a little.

The first comic book I ever received I got for Christmas when I was seven years old. It was a Donald Duck comic book. Actually, I got 20 of them because my mom bought them in a comic shop for 50 cents each. I continued collecting Disney comics for the next few years, mostly because they sold them in a little general store right down the street from my house and I would stop in and pick some up every Sunday on my walk home from church. Four years later when I was 11 my mom got me my very first superhero comic. It was “Supreme” number 1.

To be honest, I wasn’t that into Supreme, but I was very much into superheros. To be honest, at the time I was just starting into the adventures of puberty and I was going through changes. I could easily identify with the plight of superheroes who were also, “going through changes”.  I started to go to an actual comic book store to make my purchases, but due to the fact that I was still basing my income on a weekly allowance from my parents I bought the cheap stuff.

I bought a few Captain America books, I bought some Ironman and War Machine books but those were the exceptions to what I bought the most of which were the super cheapies. In particular I bought “The Punisher”, “Moon Knight”, “The Phantom”, “ZEN:Intergalactic Ninja” and a whole host of comics by companies like Dark Horse and Valiant. Titles that the original writers probably don’t even remember making.

Of all the El Cheapo books I bought, I came to own the entire collections of the original “Punisher”, “Punisher: War Journal” and “Punisher: War Zone”. I bought comics almost religiously for the next 7 years. Up until the time I was 18 I spent probably $30- $40 a week on cheap comic books and I amassed a pretty formidable collection. Some have even proved to be good investments. For example, I have “Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe”, the entire first printing of the original run of “The 300″ comic, as well as the first issue of Miller’s “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns”. For the most part though the books I have remained at the same value that they where when I bought them. I mean Honestly, have you even ever heard of Marvel’s “Sleepwalker”?

After high school I got out of collecting for a while. I was in college and I really enjoyed drinking and other things that took up my limited funding. For about 2 years I didn’t buy a single new comic other than the few issues of Dare Devil written by Kevin Smith and a few Frank Miler books because he was awesome. For my birthday one of my room mates got me a few of he new Punisher books, but that was about it. For entertainment I began raiding my room mates’ collections and got into reading some of the more popular books. “Spiderman”, “The Avengers”, “X-Men”, “Batman”, “Superman” and various others. I liked them because they were comic books, but honestly with all of the re-writes, adjustments to origins and “Multiple Universe” theories, I felt that most of those titles weren’t reading. I mean, how could I come to love a character who’s complete story line changes every five issues or so.

One comic I really did get into during this period was Hellboy. A close friend of mine introduced me to the series and I LOVED it. The other major thing that happened during this time to affect the type of collector I am was the creation of a table top role playing game called “Super System”. I was really into table top rpg’s at the time and myself and my room mate’s used to hang out at a place called Phantom of the Attic in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood.

One of the guys who worked there was developing his own game and asked my friends and I to be testers. Part of playing this particular game was to put together a superhero team consisting of characters that you created. I spent a lot of time writing origins and because of that became totally obsessed with the origin stories of all superheroes.

I started re-reading all of the books I had access to and realized that I wasn’t a big fan of the “popular” comics because they had been rebooted so many times it was impossible to follow all the aspects of the story and there was almost no continuity. On the other hand, the books I had originally liked because they were cheap were now my favorites because the characters didn’t have conflicting story lines between multiple story lines based on the same title.

After college I moved to Detroit where I got back into collecting pretty seriously. I bounced from Detroit backed to the Pittsburgh area over the next 4 years and continued to pick up books along the way. I also got really into going to comic book and action figure conventions and picking up cheap titles in bulk. Like an entire long box of comics I may or may not have heard of before for $8. There was one time I bought $100 worth of those. I ended up selling a lot of stuff on ebay because I already had it or it was just crap, but I also got a lot of good titles out of it to.

When I was about 26 I got out of collecting again because I had gotten married and I was expecting my first kid. I couldn’t see fueling my habit when there were things like diapers and food that had to be bought. My wife is amazing and at that time still encouraged my addiction by buying the occasional comic for me, but I couldn’t make myself buy them. I did however start to re-read my entire collection. Again, the stuff that most people never heard of, or the titles that got cancelled after only a few issues were my favorites.

So, why am I telling you all this?

For the longest time, comic book movies were crap. Poorly made, low budget and not really related to the comic book peices of shit. Comic book fans still loved them though because even though they were cheesey and lame, they were ours. Hell, you can still go to almost any con and find some guy selling boot leg copies of the original, never released because it was so god awful, copies of the Fantastic Four from 1994. Then in 2000 something happened. Marvel put the X-Men movie into theaters. The thing about this movie is that t wasn’t written for comic book fans. It was written for the average viewer.

Marvel bet that the die hard fans would see the movie no matter what, but to line their pockets and secure the future of their company they needed to make a movie that would appeal to a broad audience. They bet wisely. X-Men was huge and was responsible for making comic book movies popular. They also pissed off a few people. I went to see X-Men on opening night with a few friends. Now as I have said multiple times already, I was not the biggest follower of X-Men comics. In Fact, most of what I new about the X-Men came from the Saturday morning Fox cartoon. I didn’t think it was a bad movie, but I was aware that the characters, story line and other things had been changed immensely to attract a wider audience. One of my other friends however almost walked out of the movie because he WAS a die hard fan and felt offended that Marvel would disrespect the people that stuck by them and bought their comics for years by changing things so drastically.
Over the last 8 years the story has been the same for almost every movie based on a comic that has been released by Marvel. D.C. on the other hand has taken a different route. They have actually decided to make movies that the comic book fans will like and figure that the rest of the people would come around. They did it with Batman Begins. They did it to the tune of one of the highest grossing movies of all time with The Dark Knight and they appear to be doing it again with the Watchmen. Dark Horse has done it with Sin City, 300 and Hellboy.

When I saw the second Punisher movie, the one starring Tom Jane, I was o.k. with it. Sure I have been a die hard Punisher fan forever. Sure, I probably know more about the character than anyone on the staff currently at Marvel. Sure I still own almost every comic with Punisher in it for more than one frame but I let all that go and just tried to enjoy the movie. Even though they switched up parts of the Punisher’s origin claiming he lived in Florida instead of New York and that his family was killed in Puerto Rico instead of Central Park, but I overlooked all that because I thought the movie was still pretty good.

Then this year Marvel makes “The Punisher: War Zone” and says that it is going to be a lot more “comic book like”. I got chills when I heard this because any time a company says that about a movie what they really mean is, “We are going to hire a bunch of people that have never actually seen a comic book ever and let them make what ever piece of shit they want”. If you need an example, see Ang Lee’s “Hulk” or “Batman Forever/Batman and Robin”. They aren’t “comic book like” they are cartoony pieces of elephant fecal matter.

On the other hand Marvel put out Ironman which I did think was awesome and the animated Avengers/Ironman/Dr. Strange movies and I thought all of those were awesome so I will give them props for that.

I guess what it all boils down to is that I consider myself a comic book fan AND a movie fan. I don’t want people dumbing down the things that I love so that people who could give a shit less about the characters, or worse yet people that used to pick on comic book nerds, can spend their money on a comic book movie.

This all brings us to today. This morning I read a headline that read, “Sequel to ‘The Phantom’ to be filmed in Australia”. I am worried for a couple of reasons. First of all, I think the Phantom is a great comic. I like the comic because first off, Falk pretty much created the modern superhero look of skin tight costumes and masks with no pupils in the eyes. Also, the Phantom has no actual powers, he just intimidates people with his wits and physical prowess. I also dig that people think he’s immortal because some one has always been the phantom for 20 generations. My two favorite parts of the Phantom are probably that he is called “The Ghost Who Walks” and his Skull ring. He also actually fights with pistols which is out of the ordinary for superheros.  It is easy to say I am a Phantom fan. I am worried because the 1996 Phantom movie starring Billy Zane was shit.

I really hope this isn’t going to be a sequal. I hope they just call it a do over. I  know it is supposed to have a pretty decent budget and that the producer wants it to be more serious so that puts my mind at easy a little but it just seems that the characters I really love are the ones who suffer the worst in the movies because they weren’t that popular to begin with. I am worried because the guy that produced the 1996 film is doing this one too but at the same time I think that might be alright because if he is doing this one 12 years later than maybe he really is a fan.

I guess I will have to wait and see.

Heading off to buy the Dark Knight

I am heading out soon to buy the Dark Knight. I didn’t go see this movie in theaters because I learned a long time ago that there are certain films I only want to watch at home so I can re watch parts as often as I wan. This is usually true for comic book movies because I like to see how the character in the movie stacks up to the character in the comic book.

I realize this is an extremely nerdy thing to do and that I have a problem, but at least I admit it. Anyhow, I have kept myself from reading anything about this movie, I have stayed away from as many production photos as I can and aside from people and media outlets shoving it down my throat I have done a good job of isolating myself from it.

I am going to purchase it at midnight watch it tomorrow and let you all know what I think.

Why We Need Tons of Destruction: pt. 5,743

The New World Order supposedly want the world population to be drastically reduced. So drastic, in fact, that they believe that 400 million is more than enough people to inhabit this planet. I am really starting to get on board with this, more and more as the days roll by.

Today’s reason to wish everyone was dead, is inspired by the supposed “uproar” over the marketing strategy used to promote the new Batman film. As you probably already know, the late Heath Ledger plays the Joker. This Joker portrayal is a lot darker than the goofy Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson portrayals; the whole new era of Batman flicks is pretty dark, focusing more on the “Dark Knight” series than on the gray and blue attired Justice League version of Batman.

People are supposedly concerned over the fate of Ledger’s Joker role, since he is basically a bruised and battered psychopath, not the Prince-loving, pastel-raping Nicholson villain. Supposedly, there is concern over how this movie should be marketed, and whether or the current marketing agenda (featuring Ledger’s bashed-up face, and writing in blood) should be dropped or changed.

Here is where napalm and torture comes into the equation for me. If you are seriously upset and worried about Heath Ledger’s character being used in the marketing of this movie because Ledger just croaked, go fuck yourself. Seriously. You should kill yourself. I want you to kill yourself.

Is this really what we need to be focusing on? Just because a guy in the movie is dead, we need to start rethinking the fucking marketing strategy? Listen… Heath Ledger didn’t die filming the fucking movie. And even if he did, that would make me want to see it even more than I already do.

A lot of people were upset at the news that Ledger accidentally killed himself, and alot of people think this dude had a very bright future. He’s pretty good. He did an awesome job in Brokeback Mountain, I saw 4 or 5 of his other movies and thought they were just whatever. I guess he showed capacity in Brokeback Mountain to be really good in the future, or when he wanted to put effort into it. From the short clips I saw, from Christopher Nolan’s high praise of him in the role, and from his capacity in Brokeback, it really looked to me like Heath Ledger put the effort into this Joker character. That means he probably did a real fuckin’ good job with it.

If that is the case, do you think that Heath Ledger, or Brandon Lee, or anyone else, would have wanted you to be a sis and start questioning anything about that film just because he was dead? Who the fuck are you people? Where the fuck do you even come from? Are you honest to God going to boycott that movie because one of the actors is dead, and you didn’t like how the studio used his character, which is a main character, to promote the film? You need taken out in the parking lot and shot in the back of the head. Actually, you need shot in the stomach a few times, because I want you to see my face while you squirm in your own blood while knowing that eventually the wounds will kill you.

If you don’t want to take your kid to see dead Heath Ledger work his ass off in a film, don’t take him. I don’t know why his death is so much more of an end-all for you than the fact that he writes “why so serious?” in blood all over the goddamn city.

Sorry for the hate-filled rant and all that, but America loves to bitch just to bitch. People here love being able to complain about something that they honestly don’t give one shit about. Toughen the fuck up and shut the fuck up. If you fuckin’ cowards put half the effort into something worth a shit, instead of feigning dislike over movie marketing, this American empire wouldn’t be on it’s downswing. If you care that much, or have been so affected by Ledger’s accidental suicide, honor him by going to see a film he put effort into.

In conclusion, you’re an idiot.