Neverending Digression

Will Elder one of the original Mad artists, co-creator of the popular Playboy strip, Little Annie Fanny, and Comic Book Hall of Famer passed away today. He was 86. Before Mad came along Elder provided artwork for many of the EC titles including Two-Fisted Tales and Weird Fantasy.

Articles Remembering Will Elder:

New York Observer

BoingBoing.net

For the second week in a row, Iron Man stood defiant on the top of the box office sales figures. The flick raked in an additional $50.5 million domestically, for an accumulative domestic gross of approx $177 million so far. Speed Racer didn’t fare to well on its opening weekend, suffering from negative buzz online and less than favorable reviews it only brought in $20.2 million narrowly locking in a 2nd place position box office sales.

I don’t think the studio plugged Speed Racer hard enough as a kids movie, with a better marketing effort Speed Racer could have done a little better in sales. But honestly, there was only so much they could do to counter all the positive chatter that has surrounded Iron Man. Even though a feature length Speed Racer film doesn’t interest me in the least, the effects and atmosphere look awesome. It looks like it’ll make a good DVD to pop into an HD set up.

More Hulk images were released, Cinematical has them available to view : http://www.cinematical.com/photos/the-incredible-hulk-1/ A few look like stills from the trailers that have been released, which is fine. Since Iron Man was so well executed, I have some new hope for the Hulk as a movie. As a shareholder, I have some concern about its performance. A lot of fans didn’t like the previous Hulk flick, and since that didn’t come out too long ago it might negatively impact sales for this movie at the box office.

CNN wrote up an interesting piece on the 1950’s and comic books.  The article’s been getting a high level of notice on their site today.  Since I’ve read a bit on that era this article didn’t really tell me anything new. I’m a geek who knows his history of the comic book medium. It did make me think about how it mirrors in a way some of the hullabaloo surrounding some video games now. Video games have become the new feared source of brain rot in our country, which is ridiculous. I find it funny how history repeats itself, I only hope our games are effected the same way horror and crime comics were back then.

The Pictures that Horrified America - by Todd Leopold, CNN.com

Marvel released its list of upcoming projects. Included are the Iron Man sequel, an Avengers film, a Thor film, Capt. America film and Ant man. The upcoming DVD’s looking interesting. However I do find the idea of a Spider-man musical a little disturbing.

Below is the Marvel Studios upcoming projects list as retreived from the Marvel press release presented in Yahoo Finance.

Technorati Tags: Marvel Captain America Avengers Iron Man Iron Man 2 film, movies Marvel Studios Avengers Movie Antman Spider-man Spiderman Musical

Kudos to Marvel and Jon Favreau, you did it. Iron Man is the best Marvel superhero movie to date, bar none. It might actually be one of my favorite films of the genre, period. This was an intelligent movie with humor and heart that didn’t rely on special effects to carry the film. This film is more about the growth of the man behind the armor then really the superhero adventures of Iron Man.

I was in the camp that thought this movie would suffer from Origin Syndrome where we have to through the paces of seeing the Iron Man become Iron Man. Honestly I really liked this element of the film. Iron Man’s origin is one that has been retold ad naseum. I could recount the origin of Superman or Spider-Man in my sleep. Tony Stark figuring out how to create the Iron Man armor in all its incarnations was a cool process to be a part of. It gave the audience a chance to see why he’s a different kind of hero than any we’ve seen onscreen. This wasn’t a kid who got his powers by accident. In Tony Stark we have a middle-aged man building a suit of armor in order to save his life, both literally and figuratively.

To echo everyone else’s praise, Robert Downey Jr. was perfect as the lead character. But a lot of credit also has to go to this screenplay, also to director Jon Favreau for putting together a great cast. Terrence Howard as Jim “Rhodey” Rhodes and Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts were both excellent. These are both key characters in the Iron Man stories, they were brought to the screen with the same level of excellence that Downey provided his portrayal of Tony Stark.

I’d heard some complaints that the end battle was a weakness for the film. I have to disagree. Though it was a predictable as an oncoming train. I didn’t feel that the scene dragged on for too long, nor do I think the film was using this battle sequence as a special effects laden crutch. It was a well done film that got me excited for future installments. I hope they are able to keep the cast together from this first film.

I give it a 4 out of 5 overpriced buckets of popcorn. A fun movie to kick off the summer season. Hulk and The Dark Knight have a lot to live up to here.

Technorati Tags: Iron Man Tony Stark Robert Downey Jr. Gwyneth Paltrow Marvel supehero movie review film

After tasting Fentimans Curiousity Cola last week, I had to try out more of what they had to offer. I’ve always enjoyed a nice dry ginger ale, but I’ve recently gained a great deal of appreciation for ginger beers. A spicy ginger beer with a dryness that burns the back of your throat taking your breath away is just a great experience. Fentimans Ginger Beer delivers this experience in spades. This soft beverage follows the Fentimans tradition of botanical brewing. This compares really well with other ginger beers I’ve had. The throat burn really gets you the first couple of times. But after a few more swallows you can adjust. I don’t find this burn to be a bad thing at all its the measure of a good ginger beer. This soft drink is Fentimans most popular flavor and I can see why. Its said to be made by fermenting top quality Chinese ginger roots. As with the Curiousity cola, the level of quality is apparent in the Ginger Beer. 5 out of 5 bottles, an awesome Ginger Beer for anyone who is a fan of the flavor.

Next up is something totally new to me. At our local Big Lots my wife found a selection of Flathead Lake Monster Gourmet Sodas. A “hand crafted” soda from Montana. She’s knows I’m not really a fan of fruity sodas, but these flavors were different from the norm that she picked them up. Right off the bat the strong colors of these sodas had me a little wary. The green of the Granny Apple soda isn’t done justice by that photo I have above. This was a really green soda, it almost looked like a sour apple Now and Later candy had been melted down and poured into a bottle. I was really surprised when I found out how light and pleasant the taste of the Granny Apple was. It had a mild apple flavor that was faintly sour. It was really refreshing and completely counter to what I’d feared. A nice change of pace from some of the heavy handed flavoring thrown at us by some of the larger soda companies.

As successful as I found the Granny Apple flavor I was disappointed by the Black Raspberry. To me it didn’t really taste like raspberries at all. It tasted almost like a weak grape soda instead. It didn’t taste bad, but it wasn’t that great either. Its rather unfortunate because I wanted to know what raspberry would taste like. I don’t think it tastes like a mediocre grape soda. Maybe I was thrown off by the color which was similar to grape. But closing my eyes and just smelling the soda still gave me a grape aroma.

I haven’t been able to find out too much about the Flathead Lake Monster brand of sodas online. There doesn’t appear to be an official company presence for the products. Since we found it at Big Lots there’s a chance that is a product that didn’t take off. If you happen across this Granny Apple I’d pick it up for sure 3 out of 5 bottles, Black Raspberry wasn’t disgusting, it was just a little disappointing 2 out of 5 bottles.

Technorati Tags: soda ginger beer ginger ale Fentimans pop soft drink Flathead Lake Monster black raspberry soda: apple soda imported gourmet soda

Just a reminder to anyone curious about comic books or interested in sampling new titles gratis. It’s Free Comic Book Day tomorrow at all participating comic book shops. Check out the Free Comic Book Day website for more information and use their store locator to find a participating shop near you. I will be going to my local shop, Beyond Comics in Gaithersburg (their website stinks and has been under construction forever, but it’s at least good for the address and phone number of their locations.

Technorati Tags: Free Comic Book Day comic books comics Beyond Comics Marvel DC Comics Dark Horse Comics Disney Image reading, art

My son has been crazy about the Pixar movie, Cars. He watches this film multiple times a week. Plays with the toys every day, looks for the merchandise whenever we go shopping. To say he’s a fan is an understatement. Trains and dinosaurs have their place in his heart, but nothing tops Cars. So Cars has obviously been on my mind and I found a cool guide to Route 66 and some of the real people and places that inspired the characters and locations in the film. I know Cars isn’t really top of mind for a lot of folks, but it is in our household.

Route 66 News - June 9, 2006 Entry

Technorati Tags: Disney, Pixar, Route 66, Cars, historic, highway, mother road

Okay first off I have to give some credit to Marvel Subscriptions. For three weeks in a row now, almost an entire month, I’ve gotten my comic books ahead of time, sometimes by as much as 3-4 days ahead of time. This has been awesome and a great change from previous years of service. I’ve complained more then once on this blog about the tardiness of my comic book deliveries with Marvel. I’m enjoying this new early service, and I hope I’m not jinxing it by acknowledging and appreciating it publicly.

Secret Invasion is Marvel’s big crossover event for Summer 2008. It’s already ramping up with the first issue of the flagship title coming out a couple weeks ago and more action being included in the Avengers titles and Ms. Marvel. I received the latest New Avengers yesterday in the mail which advanced the story considerably with a big reveal at the end of the book. A much more satisfying ending then the one offered by last weeks Mighty Avengers.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Nick Fury, and last week’s Mighty Avengers offered me something I’d wanted for awhile, a solid Nick Fury story. But it really didn’t offer anything new. All it did really was signal us, the readers, that Nick Fury is aware that something is going on with Skrulls and he’s working on figuring it all out. Other than that, no big info was revealed and the story didn’t really advance at all.

All in all I’m digging Secret Invasion a lot. The Skrulls have always been fun aliens, and this new, religious motivation for their invasion of Earth adds an interesting twist. The new weapons at their disposal makes the Skrulls more dangerous than ever which is really cool for an alien race that hasn’t always been taken seriously by writers.

I also have a lot of hope that this invasion will serve as a unifying factor the groups of heroes splintered by the Civil War event in 2006. If you’ve been hesistant about getting onboard with Secret Invasion, I recommend coming along for the ride. This is a strong start and so far the support materials in the other titles has been above par as well. I wasn’t a fan of the Hulk Event last year, you could see where it was going from the start. This event seems to be a little more sophisticated and a little deeper. We’ll see how it bears out in the end of course. And if it starts to suck, I’ll complain about it here. But right now, I’m enjoying it immensely.

The reviews are starting to come in for Iron Man. So far they look great, beyond what I’d hoped and expected. It’s looking very promising, I can’t wait to see this movie. Here is a list of the reviews I’ve found so far:

Iron Man Review: Joe Tirella - Newsarama.com : “Favreau … has managed to turn in one of the most memorable film adaptations of a comic book hero that Hollywood has ever made…”

Downey Flies High in Iron Man: Kirk Honeycutt - Reuters: “Iron Man … may be the cinema superhero for the rest of us.”

Iron Man Rocks: Roger Friedman - Fox News

Iron Man a Blockbuster with a Brain: Christy Lemire - San Francisco Chronicle

Review: Iron Man: Shaun Manning - Comic Book Resources “Favreau … has created in “Iron Man” a successful blend of indie wit and blockbuster action.”

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