League of Extraordinary Bloggers: Ghosts of Christmas Past

I've been seriously neglecting my duties as a member of the League of Extraordinary Bloggers for a while now, but I figured I'd chime in on this particular topic this week, and see if I couldn't get back into the swing of things a little bit. And what, you may ask, is the topic of the week for the LoEB? Let's take a look:

"Tell a Christmas story from your past."

Looking at my past Christmases, it would be easy to pick one from my childhood where I got THE GIFT... the year I got the G.I. Joe Mobile Command center for instance... or the year I got my entire collection of Real Ghostbuster toys... favorite childhood memories like that... but instead, I decided to go with something a little more raw, a little more recent... just 5 years past in fact.

At the time, my wife and I had only 1 child, and we were waiting for our second to arrive. I was on my way to work early one morning (I had to be at work by 4:30 am and had about an hour commute, so this was right around 4 am because I was about half-way there) about six weeks before the baby was due, when I got a call on my trac-phone, and my wife asked me to come back home. She was having the baby. Of course, this was December 9th and he wasn't actually due until mid-January... But regardless, I turned around and went back home, took my wife to the hospital, and she did in fact have the baby.

But... right away, things were weird. They didn't let us hold the baby right away, and instead whisked him off to the nursery and put him in an oxygen tent. Of course, no one was really telling us anything, because why would they? But long story short, it turned out that because my son was born 6 weeks early his lungs weren't completely done developing and creating surfactant. So he was having trouble breathing. We didn't really get what all this meant, but it meant that he was going to be transported about an hour away to the NICU in Bangor. Via ambulance. And we couldn't go with him. 

We ended up having to stay the night in Ellsworth (I stayed with my wife so I could drive her the next day) and then going to Bangor first thing the next morning. We had decided to name our son after these guys:

So we began to process of waiting to see if our son would live or die for about 2 weeks. For the first two nights, we were put up at the Ronald McDonald house, and I am forever thankful that we had that option for the first couple of days. Then we decided that we would have to go home. Our daughter needed us, and we would commute every day back out to the hospital to be with our son throughout the day.  

Each visit to the NICU would begin with a harrowing tale of how our son had very nearly expired in the night. We would stand there and listen grimly while the doctors and nurses would fill us in on his status. My wife and I had gone through a miscarriage about a year and a half before trying to have this child... and now we were sure we were going to lose another baby. But then something AWESOME happened...

Hmmm... maybe I'll stick around.

I survived being born premature for THIS!?!?!?

As December crept along, our son began to show improvement. He began to get healthier. We started to get the idea that our baby was not, in fact, going to leave us. He was here to hang out for a while. His lungs opened up, he started breathing completely unassisted... he was going to come home with us. He might even make it home... before Christmas! And then, we got the news: We would be bringing him home on Christmas Eve. CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

Doesn't he look excited?

Here is my daughter holding him in bed on Christmas Eve of 2008. I'm sure SHE might not agree... but I can tell you right now that bringing my son home healthy (and as happy as a newborn can ever seem to be...) on Christmas Eve officially makes him the best Christmas gift I have ever gotten. 

My daughter was pretty convinced her best gift was this big-a** purple unicorn, and NOT a new baby brother (She was even less excited when her second baby "bother" showed up two Decembers later). Anyway, here he is now, celebrating his 5th birthday just this past month:

He's healthy and he loves his Trash Packs.

He is a soulful, sensitive, polite, and intelligent boy. He makes every day special in a different way. I can not tell you how thankful I am to have him and my daughter, and my other son in my life. They are all gifts. It's just that THIS one came home on Christmas Eve.

Let's see what the other Leaguers are remembering about Christmas:

- Nerd Out With Me remembers the BIG CHRISTMAS STORM.

- That Yellow Duck remembers Monkey Bread and Ace Duck.

- Tintod over at JunkFed remembers the ghost of Jacob Marley... in various different forms.

- Our fearless leader Brian over at Cool and Collected remembers something so HORRIFYING that I cannot tell you here because it will ruin the surprise. JUST GO READ IT.

And speaking of Brian and Cool and Collected... the Cool and Collected Magazine is officially OUT... IN PRINT!!!

 

And yours truly, Mister Goodwill Geek (aka Derek Ash) has an article included... "What a Character: Superman!" (You might notice its ON THE COVER). Go buy a dozen copies and give them out Ebeneezer Scrooge-at-the-end-of-A-Christmas-Carol style this Christmas!

SO much blogging to catch up on! I'm pretty much going to maintain radio silence until the New year... with a small exception for Mason over at D.I. Treasures, I simply cannot wait until after the holidays are over to share what he sent me in trade recently. BUT! I will be back soon (in 2014) with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! until then, Happy Hunting!

League Post: Deserted Island!

So it's League of Extraordinary Bloggers' time once again! This time around, Brian got a bit more wordy with the topic. I actually love the simpler, more-open-to-interpretation one or two word topics, don't mistake me. But this one is very... VERY... specific.

You are stranded for 10 years on a deserted island. You can take with you the following:

One food item (in a never-ending supply), one movie, one game, and one pop culture character.

I'm going to set the stage first. I've been stranded for 10 years on a deserted island. I was obviously sailing around the world on my own, a dashing millionaire with a private, one-man schooner. I prepared by loading my small vessel with a hold full of one food-item, one film to watch for 10 full years, one game to play all that time, and one person to spend all that time with... plucks from the halls of pop-culture history. Then some sort of untoward happenstance (hurricane, tsunami, pirates (and not the fun kind), falling space-wreckage, sea-monster, what-have-you...) lands my sorry ass on a deserted island.


So let's break this down.

1) I get to take one food item (in a never-ending supply). What would it be?

It took me only a minute to think this one through. Since it's MY choice, and "never-ending supply" sort of implies that LOGIC need not apply... I choose:

STEAK MUTHAF**KA!!!

Of course, I'm going to salvage a grill from the schooner and grill that shit up right. EVERY DAY FOR TEN YEARS (And because I have a never-ending supply I am not going to worry about keeping it fresh). And this isn't some cheap cut. We're talking the good stuff. A thick... juicy porterhouse. Yes... I know, after 10 years, I might get sick of porterhouse steaks... but I don't care. It's what I want. 

2) I get to take along one movie (And I'm assuming I have some way of watching it over and over again for 10 years without having to just stare at the case...). What would it be?

My favorite movie of all time? One that I would want to watch time and time again for 10 years worth of viewings? Easy. 

BUBBA HO-TEP MUTHA-F**KA!!!

I. Love. This. Film. From the main character, Sebastian Haff, to the ridiculous fight scene with a scarab beetle, to a show-down between a senior citizen in a Lone Ranger costume and a Mummy in... well pretty damn close to the same duds, to the sense of loss the viewer feels when watching a black man who thinks he is John F. Kennedy talking to a man who may-or-may-not actually be Elvis Presley as they discuss the wrongs they have perpetrated against their imagined (or maybe not imagined...) children... This film is incredible. It's a cross breed of a film, with genuine drama and human emotion and goofy comedy hi-jinks wrapped up in a shlocky, b-movie horror package.

3) I get to bring along one game. What one will I choose? 

Mwuah-ha-ha!!! I've been playing it pretty by-the-rules so far, and this will be the first time I kind-of-sort-of cheat... But it says ONE GAME. 

AD&D MUTHA-F**KA!!!

Yes. That's right. I am bringing along the ENTIRE set of AD&D books, supplements, and compatible products... which encompasses all books and magazines put out by all companies, official TSR products or not. I will be fair and limit it to 2nd Edition compatible books (but this does NOT eliminate the handful of books from the 1st edition or 2.5 edition that are fully functional in a 2nd edition game). I'm going full-on wish-fulfillment here. This would include plenty of dice, paper, character sheets, and graph paper for making maps as well. It's my fantasy island. It's ALL ONE GAME DAMMIT. 

So Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Player's Option, Grimtooth's Traps, Spelljammer... ALL OF IT is on the island (I sort of imagine in a bunch of trunks similar to the ones from "Joe vs. the Volcano" so they're kept nice and dry). 

4) I get to bring one character from pop culture along... Who would it be?

Well... I can't play AD&D with just one person can I? So I'm killing a few dozen birds with one mutant stone here:

MULTIPLE MAN MUTHA-F**KA!!!

That's right folks, I'm bringing Jamie Madrox, The Multiple Man with me! He is and always has been one of my absolute favorite X-characters. I love the nature of his power, I love that when he's by himself... he's never alone. I would never be lacking for extra players for AD&D... we'd always have a full work-force for whatever needed doing around the island... and if it gets too crowded (or if they start eating up too much of my never-ending supply of steak...), he can just reabsorb his dupes to make space. 

Would I get tired of having steak dinners while playing AD&D between viewings of Bubba Ho-Tep with one guy who can become hundreds of guys? Maybe. But I'd have a whole lot of fun for the first year or so.

Who and what would the rest of the League be stranded with? (I'm dispensing with the clever references to the contents of each site just for this week because the topic is so specific...) 

- Flashlights Are Something to Eat

- Retro Toy Safari

- Diary of a Dorkette

- Fortune and Glory (Days)

- Pop Rewind

- Cool and Collected

Okay that's it for me tonight kids! I'll be back soon with some more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!

League Post: Comic Books!

It seems like it was League of Extraordinary Bloggers time just a short while ago doesn't it?

Maybe I'm just imagining things. Anyway, in honor of Free Comic Book Day this Saturday, the topic for the League this week is:

Comic books. 

I got thinking about a bunch of different comic-related topics that I wanted to talk about... but since I share pretty extensively all the comic books I buy at Goodwill, I decided to skip that for now. 

Instead I'm going to talk about 10 comic book titles that I love above ALL others. I'm going to do it in a countdown format, but honestly, there's really no particular order to these 10 titles. And honestly, I could probably list a LOT more than 10... but I'll keep those in my back pocket for now. So here goes. In no particular order at all my 10 favorite comic book runs/titles/collections/whatever criteria I choose. 

10. Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men

In 2003 I returned to comics when Neil Gaiman wrote a mini-series for Marvel called "1602". That series was just okay but what was truly important about it was that it got me back into my local comic book shop for the first time in almost 8 years or so. Neil Gaiman may have gotten me back into comics... but Joss Whedon kept me there. In 2004 he began an new series called "Astonishing X-Men". It starred Cyclops, Emma Frost, Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, and Beast. Colossus, who was dead at the time would soon rejoin the cast as well. Whedon added to the X-canon by inventing some new characters from whole-cloth such as X-student Armor, alien villain, Ord, and one of my personal favorites, the sentient Danger Room construct known simply as Danger. 

Whedon's series was an excellent blend of all the significant X-Eras. You had the classic feel of the old Byrne/Claremont books, mixed with the high concepts of the Morrison run. He combined the concepts flawlessly and told retro-but-fresh feeling stories that displayed the same light-and-dark hearted tone he displayed on his television shows like Buffy and Firefly. I can pick these trades back up years later and still find them entertaining, gut-wrenching, tear-jerking, and simply astonishing. 

I like stories that take old concepts like this, respect the continuity, and still manage to make everything new, exciting, and most importantly, easy to follow. I found Marvel Knights 4 (a Fantastic Four book) to be a very similar sort of reading experience. 

9. The Goon

The Goon by Eric Powell from Darkhorse comics is one of those books that I started reading late in the game and immediately felt I needed to get caught up in a major way. 

The Goon and his sidekick Franky bust heads through a monster-filled, slap-stick, supernatural, crime-noir, absurdist, low-brow, high-concept, sci-fi infused, sex-filled, profane, brilliant romp full of cool cars, stage magicians from hell, booze, sea witches who just want to be loved, voodoo priests, booze, wicker men, giant latin lizards, haunted houses, booze, mad scientists, cannibalistic hobos, skunk apes, zombies, robots, hook-handed fish men, werewolves, bartenders, giant talking spiders, crazy old gypsy ladies, booze, psychic seals, leprous hooded freaks, bog lurks, ghosts, booze, giant squid, and Peaches Valentine, who has to be seen to be believed. The writing, sense of humor, sense of horror, and storytelling both absurd and serious are all incredible. And as ridiculous as the main series is... it's Powell's departures into projects like "Chinatown" that show his storytelling range. Also "Satan's Sodomy Baby" should totally be a Disney film somewhere down the road. 

"Knife to the eye!"

8. Planetary

Warren Ellis has a bevvy of books that fascinate me. FELL, Desolation Jones, Transmetropolitan, Newuniversal, and Freakangels are all favorites that spring to mind... but by far one stands tall above his other works in my mind:

Planetary is an incredible series starring Elijah Snow, Jakita Wagner, The Drummer, and a cast of characters meant to be direct references to dozens of other fictional characters. You see, Planetary takes place in a world populated by literally any and all kinds of fictional beings, including monsters, superheroes, aliens, ghosts, and everyone is a recognizable archetype based on characters like Doc Samson, Captain Marvel, The Fantastic Four, Tarzan, Wonder Woman, John Constantine, Mothra, Marilyn Monroe, and many more. 

But beyond the gimmick, Ellis uses the characters to turn traditional genre fiction on its ear and get down to the hearts of the heroes behind the stories. He makes all the fantasy and wild concepts a real core of character relationships. It's an incredible read, an incredible team book, and an incredible collection of tales and adventures. 

7. Astro City

Kurt Busiek takes a similar tact to his storytelling in Astro City as Ellis does in Planetary... with a few major differences. Busiek doesn't use the classic archetypes and storytelling tropes to just tell "hey this seems familiar" style comic book adventures. Instead he grafts a completely human experience onto each story, giving the reader a brand new perspective on what it is to be a villain, a victim, a hero, a henchman, or a hapless onlooker in the experience of "real-world" super-battles. 

The concepts of age, legacy, generations, duty, social class, culture shock, xenophobia, and so much more are explored in the run of stories. We get aged villains and heroes who feel past their prime, others who pass their duties, ethos, and in some cases their very mantles on to the younger generation. We have everything from condemned criminals too tired to do anything but the "right thing" and children who explore the world through sometimes super-powered but often all-too-human eyes of wonder. 

If you've never read it, please realize it's not a rip-off, it is one of the most genuine forms of homage I have ever seen in comic book form. 

6. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Alan Moore has a ton of books out that completely knock me flat, like Watchmen just to name one (Promethea, V for Vendetta, and Top Ten to name a handful more). 

But where Watchmen takes comic book archetypes and elevates them to literary gold... LoEG goes in the opposite direction. It takes a collection of literary characters and reduces them to the basic concepts that make them super heroes and villains. Characters like Mr. Hyde and The Invisible Man go toe-to-toe with the Martians from War of the Worlds and Moriarty. There are great call-backs to other works of classic literature, like the Island of Dr. Moreau, Pollyanna, 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea, James Bond, Orlando, and Gulliver's Travels, among literally hundreds of other references. Some pages in LoEG play like a page from Where's Waldo, with a who's-who of old Newspaper cartoons, poems, songs, and of course more books. It's a shared literary universe. The series tends to get a little bogged down in Moore's weirdness the further it progresses from the first two collections, but they are still brilliant. Nothing reads better than that original pair of mini-series though. Such an excellent concept, executed in such a clever and humanized fashion. 

5. Hawaiian Dick 

Hawaiian Dick is a criminally ignored series that NEEDS to have it's third collection put back out in TPB STAT. The stories are incredible period-piece 50's era crime noir stories with just enough Hawaiian folklore and forces mixed in amp things up and keep them interesting. 

B. Clay Moore's stories with Steven Griffin's illustrations cast a hypnotic spell over the reader, with incredible color, kick-ass crime storytelling, and an awesome retro feel that would work without any supernatural elements at all. 

The stories hero, Byrd, is your typical gumshoe, albeit a bit more light-hearted and likeable than most (even though he's an alcoholic with vast emotional problems). The supporting cast around Byrd, like his buddy on the police force, Mo, and lady friend, Kahami are all well developed and help to build a fascinating and compelling world that I always want to crawl inside and make a home in. 

But I'm a sucker for good genre private dick stories, like Brian Bendis's Marvel MAX title ALIAS, and Sam Noir: Samurai Detective by Anderson and Trembley... but Hawaiian Dick really stands apart. 

4. Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Batman Books

There are plenty of excellent Batman books out there, definitive ones that stand the tests of time. But for me, I like a good stand-alone story that redefines a hero without having a ton of baggage it drags around behind it.

Jeph Loeb abd Tim Sale have worked on a set of four collections of Batman-universe stories together. Batman: Haunted Knight, Batman: the Long Halloween, Batman: Dark Victory, and Catwoman: When in Rome are all incredible collaborations between Loeb and Sale that tell some incredible stories about the Dark Knight and his twisted rogue's gallery. 

Tim Sale's hyper-kinetic line-work make characters like The Joker and Poison Ivy larger than life. Yet there's also a sort of gritty realism that helps characters like Jim Gordon and the gangsters he's fighting keep a very realistic integrity. The idea of the freak culture of Gotham city with it's masked vigilantes and villains slowly edging out "traditional" crime and crime fighting is heavily referenced here, as the last big crime family and an idealistic District Attorney have to try to defend their respective statuses in the face of changing times. 

3. All-Star Superman

With the exceptions of his run on the X-Men, and his short Vertigo series WE3, I am often left out in the cold when it comes to the rabid Grant Morrison love. His Seven Soldiers series was cool, but didn't strike all the right notes for me. I haven't read his run on Batman at all.

But Superman? I've read his Superman. All-Star Superman is Morrison's love-letter to the insanity of early era Superman comics juxtaposed with the insane futuristic visions of technology and techno-voodoo that only Grant Morrison seems capable of. With Frank Quitely's amazing artwork setting it all on fire, All Star Superman is a paean to the crazy mythology only found in the pulpiest and wildest of the comic book medium. 

This is truly an incredible Superman story to end all Superman stories, with epic battles, legendary villains, and allies who straddle the line between helpful and harmful. Clark Kent is amazingly rendered here, as are all the classic characters like Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Lex Luthor. I am generally not a fan of Superman in the slightest, but this is the kind of reality bending insanity that I think Superman was invented for. 

2. Ex Machina

Brian K. Vaughn is a household name for most comic books fans at this point. With a hugely successful run on Y: The Last Man, and his new series, Saga tearing up the controversy with its sex and non-titillating titillation...  as well as BRILLIANT books like Dr. Strange: The Oath and Pride of Baghdad under his belt... it was hard to pick one book of his to focus on. 

But by far one of my favorite books of his is Ex Machina, a strange blend of the West Wing, Fringe (I know Fringe came later), and The Rocketeer. Brian K. Vaighn found an outlet to talk not only about superheroes, but real-world politics in a non-preachy and interesting way. Every story arc dealt with a mystery or villain of some sort, as well as the mechanics of having to be the Mayor of New York, all while building on the mystery of just where the main character's superpowers (talking to machines and inventing science-fiction hero gear) come from, and what they mean. There's political intrigue, mystery solving, a touch of science-horror, and some good old fan-boy geek-out moments in the mix. All wrapped up with a well-written and so-human-it-hurts cast of characters you won't know what hit you. 

1. iZombie

We've come to the #1 slot, although I don't really feel that iZombie would hit #1 if I were grading on a genuine scale here. It's just the last book I decided to write about. But it is AWESOME.

With Chris Roberson on writing chores and the legendary Mike Allred on art, this book is an incredible blend of cheesy pop-culture and horror tropes gone noir. They mine everything, from a Scooby-Doo meets the Munsters sort of vibe, to a Dr. Phibes sort of style. The book is stylish and smart, and has modern monsters trying to adapt to a harsh and modern world. The supporting cast is a brilliant assortment of characters that would have fit in perfectly with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her crew, and the plot device behind main character Gwendolyn's need to feed and her need to help those she's fed on is an excellent one. 

Allred's art is both retro and modern at the same time, especially when characters like Ellie the ghost take center stage. 

...

WOW. I feel like I've been writing about comic books for HOURS now... and actually I have. But it's easy when it's a set of books like the ten I featured above. I also managed to sneak in references (some subtle some not) to some various runner-up titles that I would have loved to explore in more depth... but this is ENOUGH. 

Let's take a look at what some of the other Leaguers are saying about our topic this week:

- Nerd Rage Against the Machine introduces us to a comic I've never heard of before, called Desert Peach. 

- Toyriffic is a big cheating cheater who cheats and uses a post he put up about the AWESOME Plastic Man archive editions he recently picked up. 

- Fortune and Glory (Days) goes all 90's collector's bubble on us with his homage to the Death of Superman.

- Yelinna at Traveling Pics gives us her purview on perusing Peruvian periodicals. 

Well that is IT for tonight's blog post, ladies and gents. I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! until then, Happy Hunting!