Thursday, November 4, 2004

The Wicked West (Image Comics)


I had been looking forward to this book for quite some time and I wasn't disappointed at all. The story is a horror western about a drifter who has a run in with vampires, after taking a local teaching job, in a small town called Javer's Tanks. The artwork is excellent and so is the writing.


Another thing I liked about this GN was the price. If I remember right I got it for about $7.50 after a discount and it must retail for around $10. That is a pretty good price for a book that is over 100 pages. I'm really looking forward to any new GNs that are released detailing the "adventures" of the main character, Cotton Coleridge. The GN is by Todd Livingston, Robert Tinnell, Neil Vokes, Scott Keating and was published by Image Comics. Check it out!

Halloween 2004

For some reason, I just wasn't in the mood this year. It kinda ticked Kristi
off cuz she says its the only thing we have in common. ;) We did catch the
5hr special on Bravo which counted down the 100 scariest movies of all time.
First was given to "Jaws"; second to "Alien" and third to "The Exorcist." I
guess I pretty much agree with their choices overall. I do think that "The
Exorcist" should have been #2. Personally, its my #1 but a lot more people
have seen "Jaws" so that has to be taken into account.

Since it rained not a lot of kids showed up and I didn't spend much time handing out candy. Kristi (dressed as a witch) handed out candy with a co-worker who came over dressed as an Orc. I walked up and down our subdivision following a few groups of kids in my Michael Myers costume. I only made a couple kids cry though, muuuhahahah!! I'm a pretty big dude so I sell it pretty well ;)

Vertigo

I finally caught up on all the Hellblazer issues. I think I'm pretty much addicted to that comic book for good. :) I picked up a complete set of Sandman TPBs and a complete set of Lucifer TPBs as well. Once I'm done with those I'll probably try to read all the Volumes of Swamp Thing. I don't know why I like Vertigo so dang much.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Son of Man

I've gotten through issues #1 - 133 in the Hellblazer series. I've seen a few people talk about how they didn't like the Ennis 'Son of Man' run. At first I would have agreed but it got really twisted toward the end. I mean, whats not to like about dead babies on meat hooks? Or a mob boss giving birth (yes, through that orifice) to an anti-christ. Don't even ask me how the guy got pregnant in the first place, you really don't want to know. I wonder if they'll touch on that subject in the new Keanu Reeves movie? Nah, didn't think so :)

Friday, October 8, 2004

Killing Demons (Engine Press)

I recently purchased this book and got a chance to read it last night. As with most independent graphic novels, a good story gets going and then ends way too quickly. The book wraps up with an awkward scene between the main character and a character that is completely undeveloped. It would have been nice to see this character a couple more times briefly to just remind us that he even exists.

Given that minor critique I have to say that this is a good book. I can only hope that more books involving these characters are written because it
definitely leaves you wanting to know more. Check this book out, I don't think you'll be disappointed. Killing Demons is by Peter Siegel and Brent White and can only be found used as the company (Engine Press) is no longer in business and the book out of print. (Updated 3/8/2012)

Friday, October 1, 2004

Hellblazer

If anyone is looking to get rid of some decent chunks of a Hellblazer collection; I'm looking for the following uncollected (Not in TPB form) issues:

  • 10-40

  • 47-61

  • 84-128

  • 144 & 145


As you can see that is quite a few. :) Why DC/Vertigo has their head up their ass on this one I'll never know.

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Lovecraft HC GN (Vertigo)

I ordered a copy of this book recently and all I have to say is holy cow I love this book. This book had some stuff in it that really gave me the heebie geebies. I love the artwork and the writing is extremely good. I'd recommend it to any horror comic fan. In fact I think it might be the best horror GN I've read to date. The dust cover is mat and there is a cool tentacle coming out of the center that is glossy. When you run your fingers over the cover and your finger tips hit the tentacle it feels slimy and sticky. This book is written by Hans Rodionoff; Adapted by Keith Giffen; Art and Cover by Enrique Breccia and is being offered again in this months (SEP04) previews with an order code of SEP041203. GET IT!

Monday, September 27, 2004

Well I finally did it

My IBM A21p came with a 3com 3c556b mini-pci combo card. Its never worked all that great with linux. Not that I've ever used it all that much, the 3com modem is completely unsupported by linux (way to go 3com, I love you). I was able to accept that because god forbid I'm not always on broadband :). The ethernet card on the other hand worked. The kicker was that I always had to disable acpi with acpi=off on all my linux installs for recent 2.4 and the entire 2.6 release since the test versions. NOW, the most recent versions of the linux kernel break REGARDLESS of the acpi parameter.

I did some poking around and found out that you can easily replace these pci cards and I knew that some versions of my laptop (A21p 2629, mine is the HWU version) came with an intel ethernet/lucent modem combo that works great with linux. Sure enough, according to ibm's website there are a few different cards that are field replaceable in the A21p line (and many other lines for that matter). Over to ebay and in 10 minutes I've got a used 06P3809 (ibm part number) mini-pci combo card ordered and it only set me back about $20 bucks shipped.

Installed it today and suprise suprise, it works flawlessly. I haven't tried out the modem, but all reports seem to indicate that it works fine. I guess none of this changes the fact that this broke completely between a STABLE release of linux. Oh well, sucks to be me. Atleast now I don't have to dick with the acpi=off thing.

RoyalFest 2004

Well, I attended RoyalFest this weekend. I got to talk to Tim Seeley quite a bit about various comics and he did a zombie sketch for me which is really cool. Everyone else had him do various super hero or GI Joe stuff but I made him use his imagination :). I got an advance copy of Tim Seeley's Hack/Slash: Girls Gone Dead and I like it at least as well as the first one.

I grabbed an older issue of Digital Webbing Presents. Its one with The Goon on the cover. I REALLY liked this issue and have added DWP to my subscriptions. Freakshow, another comic from Digital Webbing, has to be my favorite find of the convention. It's got a really cool Tales from the Crypt feel and I always loved the HBO show. I spent a lot of time talking to the writer C.G. Kirby. Really nice guy, and I'm going to be looking out for just about anything he releases from now on.

Another great experience from the show was the hour plus I spent talking with Davis Vaughn from Drive Comics. They recently released a comic called The Symbiotes and I recommend you check it out. This comic is designed using 3D modeling tools. Its really quite amazing. I wonder how long before someone buys the rights to the game franchise :).

Well those are my highlights from this years show. All in all it was pretty decent and its the biggest show we have in the St. Louis area. Hopefully it'll keep getting bigger and better every year. Next up is probably Wizard World Chicago next fall. A few artists and writers mentioned a largish show happening in Chicago in march. Maybe I'll do a bit of searching to see if I can find out more details. Thats all for now.

Oh, I forgot to mention another good find. I bought a book called Nocturnal
Essence by Powerful Press. I'm not a huge fan of the artwork (which is decent), but the writing is VERY good. I'd recommend it to anyone who is a sucker for vampire and werewolf comics like myself.

Monday, September 13, 2004

Collateral

Going to see this today. A buddy from work said he liked it a lot. Jamie Fox(sp?) seems to be getting into better roles lately. The new Ray Charles movie coming out looks pretty decent as well.

Saturday, September 11, 2004

Resident Evil 2 (Follow up)

First half is slow, picks up a bit towards the end. Its not as good as the first one. Dialog is pretty cheesy through the entire film. I'd say 2 or 2.5 stars out of 5.

Friday, September 10, 2004

Resident Evil 2

I'm headed to see this in a few minutes.  The early previews made the dialog really sound like pure cheese. Lets hope I get more for my $6 than I'm expecting.

Recent films I've seen


  • I, Robot - 3/4 stars (for a will smith movie it wasn't unbearable)

  • The Bourne Supremacy - 3/5 stars (not as good as the first one)

  • The Village - 3/5 stars (better than the last movie he made. Extra .5 star just for Ron Howard's daughter. I think she's gunna really have a good career)

  • Alien vs. Predator - 2/5 stars (lemme put it this way. Alien: Resurrection was better. BLEH)

  • Exorcist: The Beginning - 1/5 stars (Oh well, bring on the Schraeder version)

  • Hero - 4/5 stars (not as good as crouching tiger, but good)

acpi=off

Ya know the thing that ticks me off about linux sometimes? If your hardware
is too old, forget about it. If your hardware is too new, forget about it.
Hopefully one day hardware vendors will step up to the plate and just make
their stuff work properly. Ya ya, learn how to hack the kernel. I just want
an OS that works and isn't proprietary is that so much to ask? Oh yeah. So
anyway, the reason I'm bitching is cuz my laptop's ethernet has been broken
with acpi enabled since 2.6 came out. :)

SMB broken

Man, I wonder if they are ever going to get the gnome vfs stuff right. SMB shares: broken, sftp: broken, etc. Come on 2.8, where are you.