The first post - a wake up call

Turns out you can procrastinate for ages over what to write as a first blog post. Limited instructions and a vague remit don’t help.

There are lots of apps to assist blogging and although I don’t use any I am a little bit addicted to the app store and also apps-about-the-app store – Pandora’s Box being a useful one. I hope I’ve linked that properly. But it was old school media – a “magazine” if you will - which alerted me to Sleepy Traveller – the app you need when you end up in Weymouth after a drunken night out and sleep through your Guildford stop (Pete).

Sleepy Traveller* works by setting off an alarm when your GPS reaches a pre-selected destination. For obvious reasons it won’t work if your end station is underground but I guess worst case scenario underground you end up at the end of the line, not in a different County/local dialect area.

I haven’t been able to test it properly (ie. Drunkenly) as my end station is underground – but I did a sober test and (dependent on the reliability of your iphone’s GPS) it seems to work. Sometimes the simplest ideas are best and as it’s currently free in the app store you can’t go wrong. And if the price goes up to £0.59 you can’t go far wrong. Cheapskate.

Will be that much better when we get multitasking (with 4G?) so you can play games/text and email drunkenly as well as getting woken up when approaching home.

There are loads of iphone apps which apparently soothe you to sleep and one (Sleep Cycle*) which measures how good your sleep is. But this one is a handy solution to what must be a very common problem. It can’t be just me and Pete.

*Link to US site. Well, I can’t find the UK link. You find it.

Due 6th May

Batman And Robin #12
Brightest Day #1
Deadpool Corps #2 (maybe)
Red Robin #12
Superman War Of The Supermen #1 (Of 4)
Ultimate Comics New Ultimates #2
Uncanny X-Men #524 XSC
X-Men Hellbound #1 Of (3) XSC (maybe)

Delayed Comics

Batman Streets Of Gotham #11
Devil #3 (Of 4)
Green Lantern #53 Brightest Day
Justice League Of America #44
Ultimate Comics Avengers #6
X-Factor #204 XSC
X-Men Legacy #235 XSC

Detective Comics #864
Gotham City Sirens #11
Green Lantern Corps #47 (Brightest Day)
Justice League The Rise Of Arsenal #2 (0f 4)
New Avengers #64 Siege
New Mutants Prem Hc Necrosha
Ultimate Comics Avengers 2 #1
X-Force #26 XSC

Due 28th April

DETECTIVE COMICS #864
GOTHAM CITY SIRENS #11
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #47 (BRIGHTEST DAY)
JUSTICE LEAGUE THE RISE OF ARSENAL #2 (0F 4)
NEW AVENGERS #64 SIEGE
NEW MUTANTS PREM HC NECROSHA
ULTIMATE COMICS AVENGERS 2 #1
X-FORCE #26 XSC

Batman: Under The Hood

This looks pretty sweet!



Thanks MSN and Comicvine.

Quick Catch-up

We are already way into Convention season - all taking place in the US. The most recent was C2E2, which I think was the first one! CBR and Comicvine both have extensive coverage of this - interviews of all the key players, outlines of various panel groups etc etc. All worth a look.

What I have been reading.

X-men. I have read three of the Second Coming arc and actually, I am enjoying it. As I stated in a previous post, I have never really been a massive X-man/X-men fan, but so far the story and art has been enjoyable. I hate that each chapter is in a different title, but other than that, I think I will keep reading - although I think there is 14 chapters, so we will see if they can continue the good work.

Turf by Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards. I read the first issue yesterday and I have to say, I thought it was pretty good. It is a well known fact that Mr Ross is a massive comic geek (good on him) and indeed it is clear that he has obviously always wanted to write a comic of his own (don't we all). CBR have a 25 minute video interview with him that is very entertaining and shows his love for both comic collecting and reading and now writing. I did try to embed it, but for some reason it didn't work. It can be found here however: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=video&show_id=288691

With clearly years of pent up 'comic writing ideas' in him, it is no surprise that the first issue is particularly wordy...there are a lot of balloons. It is reminiscent of Kevin Smith in terms of the amount of words...I like it. You feel you are getting a proper story...with proper story backgrounds. His love for genres as well, comes through in this issue...you have vampires, gangsters and aliens. But it works! Finally, the art. It really works. If you read it, you will notice the darkness of the book. TLE absolutely nails the setting and each panel is a joy to look at. Yes, I am looking forward to the next issue.

Random stuff: Thor is getting a second title; there is to be a re-do/update of the Marvel Infinity Gauntlet storyline; Time Masters: Vanishing Point is coming out from DC, which will run side to side with The Search for Bruce Wayne (not sure of release dates).

Finally, I am currently reading an excellent comic/graphic novel called Logicomix and I have to say it is really really good. It tells the story of Bertrand Russell and his search for an understanding on maths and philosophy. It is beautifully drawn and it just reads like a classic film - one you will watch repeatedly. It is a marvelous find.

No Comics this week

Due to an 'apparent' dust plume that has brought the country to a stand-still, no comics will be available for purchase tomorrow in London (I don't know if other places further north have had better luck). Disappointed but hey, what can you do. We will just have to watch this space...to see when they are next shipped in.

What I do have on my buy list is:

Batman Streets Of Gotham #11
Devil #3 (Of 4)
Green Lantern #53 Brightest Day
Justice League Of America #44
Ultimate Comics Avengers #6

Siege - Loki

I don't usually read tie-ins on big events of characters I don't follow, but I felt that it might be a fairly key ingredient to the Siege background since Loki is playing such a pivotal role. So I added it to the pile and took it home and unsurprisingly I was a little disappointed.

The annoying thing is, it could have been really good. I quite liked the story ideas and the dialogue was quite enriched with a real mischief. But the art made it feel like a children's book. And I thought that was a shame.

There were some dark themes running through here and Loki, aside from his mischief, has the potential to be an extremely evil character. The darkness of his actions was not properly illustrated and it let the book down. Not recommended.

Tech update - Opera browser

Opera browser for the iPhone. I used to use Opera on my various Windows Mobile devices and HTC's. It was excellent and extremely quick. I am keen to see what it is like on the iPhone. I have to say the pre-installed Safari for the most part is impressive, so Opera will have to be something special to beat it. Will def check it out.

Avengers movie

Apparently Joss Whedon is in line to Direct the Avengers movie. This could be quite cool. I'll hold judgment until it is official.

A few April updates

X-men and Avengers - It is all happening over at Marvel. They are essentially doing a reboot. There are new Avengers titles coming up - The Avengers and The Secret Avengers seem to be the main ones. Then they are revamping X-men - I assume after the Second Coming story arc - so far Spiderman and Blade have been announced as X-men! Strange? Cool? I do like the Blade character so it will be interesting to see what happens there.

Ipad - In the US, it seems that for the last week any techie site or blog has been about the Ipad. Admittedly a nice looking gadget, thoughts have been mixed. Marvel announced their digital service which seems to run seamlessly with both the Ipad and IPhone. They do look cool!

Frank Miller and Jim Lee are back in collaborating mode and seem to be talking about finishing off where they left off on Batman - except it would appear that the focus will be Robin. More details to follow I guess.

General bits and bobs - Megan Fox is to play Red Sonja! Apparently! Birds of Prey Comic line up has been announced. After Siege and Second Coming (before Avengers) we have Shadowlands event - Daredevil written by Andy Dingle. Also Matthew Vaughn is apparently going to direct Turf - the movie. March sees Blackest Night #8 topping the sales tables according to ICv2.com.

Due 15th April

Batgirl #9
Batman #698
Brightest Day #0
Daredevil #506
Flash #1
Green Arrow #32

Batman: Odyssey

I am really excited about this project. The return of Neal Adams. In July he will be doing a 12 issue special, which he will be writing and drawing. When I was in New York at the end of February, I bought an old Batman issue that Neal had drawn. It was because it was one of his seminal classics that it cost so much - but it is pretty special. So, for him to be doing a new one - that is very cool. Art already looks stunning.

Google Bookmarks

For a while now I have been trying to find an easy way where I can access the same bookmarks or favourites regardless of which computer I am using. I have two laptops (one in the house and a netbook for daily travel) and a desktop (which acts more like a server). One of the annoying things has been having a useful bookmark on one but not the other. Ideally I wanted to sync them all for ease of use. I had the brief notion of using Delicious, but it required a Lycos login (I think) and I am not keen on signing up for anything else these days.

So I was looking for a web based option that didn't require a new login or indeed having to share it with every Tom, Dick and Harry in the world. This is a personal online need. If I want to share anything I will make that decision and do so appropriately.

I am not sure why I didn't look into this before, but Google have a service called Google Bookmarks. It is extremely easy to use and can be accessed online at any point (very much like your GMail). You can also install the Google Toolbar on each browser you are using to fully integrate it. Now admittedly there are two key things to getting this to work seamlessly - 1. sort out and clean up your bookmarks first in your browser and 2. some tweaking is needed in the Google Toolbar settings.

I use FireFox as my main browser on all my computers. I think it is excellent and better than either IE or Chrome. I had recently gone through a process of re-categorising my bookmarks and deleting ones that were no longer of interest. It took a few hours but it was a worthwhile experience. I did this across all my computers to ensure I didn't miss any good sites. I tend to stick to basic headings or labels - Email, Comics, Blogs, Techie stuff etc. This way it is easy to find relevant sites. So once you have cleaned up your browser and are happy with your favourites, you simply import them into Google Bookmarks. This is seamless. As long as you have a Google login, you can do it and just like checking your email online, you do the same with your bookmarks. Of course you can add as you go along and regardless of where you are in the world you can access your favourite sites and blogs.

On the settings front withing the Toolbar, there are a fair few and I would recommend running through each option to make sure that you have the same setup across various computers. It doesn't take long.

For someone like me who is a big Internet user and views a lot of content across a lot of different sites, this is great way to access those sites from anywhere. I can even access them on my IPhone which is just too cool. I strongly recommend it.

Nemesis #1

At its most basic, I really enjoyed this (apart from the slightest fear that I wasn't actually going to get my hands on a first printing). Millar does like to shock and cause some fan excitement or indeed fan annoyance. Either way, lets be honest, the reader knows what to expect from him. So when you pick a comic that has the tag line, 'Makes Kick Ass look shit' you know you are in for something graphic and shocking.

It was a good read. McNiven's art is excellent and the dialogue runs smoothly throughout. The main character 'Nemesis' appears quite cool, although is clearly a villain and keen to kill cops. Little is revealed about him and whether he is human or has powers, but he does seem capable of pulling off large scale incidents. I will definitely pick up issue #2 and hope that it continues with its fast paced approach.

Geek Corner

Blackest Night has ended.
Finally. #8 was actually pretty good but as I have said all along, I felt that it often lost its way and probably didn't need to run as long as it did. The final pages were cool and it does promise an exciting Brightest Day entry issue.

Second Coming.
I haven't read an x-men comic for a long time. My reason for this is that I found them to be excessive in titles and numbers. I don't like that you have to read 3 or 4 different titles to keep up. However, Second Coming seemed like a good title to dip my feet into. And I am glad I did. I thought it was an enjoyable issue. Well written, well drawn (some really cool scenes) and something I am glad I got my hands on. However, as usual, it is not simple and the following parts appear in various 'other' x-men titles and appear to have different art. For this reason, I will most likely 'not' be picking up any further issues.

Stark Expo 2010

In the run up to Iron Man 2 the viral campaign kicks off in earnest. It is definitely worth checking out the site as it makes Stark Industries very real.

http://www.starkexpo2010.com/

David Finch art

I'm a big fan of this guy. I think I first noticed him doing the Marvel Ultimate stuff. He kinda draws in wide screen. Pretty special. Anyway it was announced some time ago that he had made the switch and signed up for DC exclusively. This is exciting stuff. I think he is doing pretty much all the forthcoming Brightest Day covers (26 or something ridiculous) and he has done a Batman cover for issue #700. I really really like this: