That's Next Year's Birthday Present Sorted

I've never been a huge player of video games; I have an X-box with maybe half a dozen games and they all fall into two categories: Grand Theft Auto and the like or Lego. Sure, that's one extreme to the other but while I love the open world, mayhem inducing freedom of the GTA series, I thoroughly enjoy the light-hearted approach of the Lego games, particularly the Star Wars ones which I'm currently re-playing for the hell of it.

Imagine my delight, then, when I stumble across this bit of news - Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes to be released next year!

According to the article:

"This time, various characters from the "DC Universe" will be joining the never-ending battle on the sides of both good and evil. You can expect to see Lex Luthor, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and others battling alongside and against the Caped Crusader, each possessing their own special abilities."

As it's due to be released next summer, I know what I'll be getting for my birthday.

No, You Didn't

The Crisis on Earth-Prime Corrections Service is once again happy to provide you with the following completely gratis.

First, a little context:

And now the corrected panel:

Feel free to print it, cut it out and stick in over the penultimate page of last week's Teen Titans #3. Doing this makes the dialogue between Red Robin and Bunker understandable.

Thank you.

(I really need to get out more.)

Monday Memes #48

Whether International or Young . . .

whether All-Stars or Society . . .

If there's Justice somewhere in your team's name, at some point you'll be charging towards us.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #156

Yeah, Kyle, you'd have thought that, wouldn't you?

So She Said . . .

The Crisis on Earth-Prime Corrections Service is pleased to present to you the following item at absolutely no cost:

Save the above picture, print it, cut it out and, using the child-friendly adhesive of your choice, paste it over the same panel on page 6 of Voodoo #3.

That way this panel now makes sense and your enjoyment of this otherwise splendid issue can continue unabated.

You're welcome.

Watchmen Sequel?

The idea of a Watchmen sequel has been floating around for a year or two now and Timothy Callahan over at CBR tackles the question, posed by a reader, of "How do you feel about the prospect of "Watchmen" spin-offs in general and about Darwyn Cooke's upcoming effort in particular?"

Of course, the question takes for granted that a) there will be a spin-off and b) that Cooke is going to be connected to it in some way. Before tackling that question, Callahan offers up something that's worth remembering:

"Alan Moore himself talked about telling more stories in the Watchmen universe. He would have written a Minutemen miniseries, had he not scuffled with DC and ended his tenure there. "Watchmen" was not, at the time, or even for a few years after, regarded as a monolithic masterpiece. It was just a comic. A really good one."

It's very easy to have a knee-jerk reaction about a sequel to Watchmen, particularly as we can be 99.99999% certain that Moore will have absolutely nothing to do with it and will pour laconic scorn over it as soon as someone tells him. If he's not going to be doing it - and Dave Gibbons has sort of said that DC shouldn't do it - then no-one should, right?

Won't Somebody Please Think Of The Children!

From the back cover of last week's The Stand: The Night Has Come #4:

And from that very same issue:

Come on, Marvel - if you're going to put a label on your comics advising of "strong language" don't $%^#ing £*!^y out and censor the $%~@ing words!

Monday Memes #47

I've been lucky a few times this year with these Monday Meme posts - Valentine's Day fell on a Monday so I went with Romance; 4th of July got the I Want You posters; and most recently Halloween provided me with a chance to show some appropriate covers.

So today being the 21st November, I thought I'd go with Romance again.

Why? Because it's my wife's birthday!

Here's two titles Ly's enjoyed over the years: the excellent Preacher and the stunning League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

She's a big fan of The Boys as well but the Green Arrow / Black Canary Wedding Special is in here just because I like Amanda Conner's art!

Happy birthday, darling!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #155?

See? It's not all bad.

Not Coming To A Comic Shop Near You

So there I was, browsing the net the other day, following links from one page to another when I ended up on deviantart. I've browsed there a few times but found myself looking at - and then searching for - mocked-up comic covers.

What can I say? It was a quiet afternoon on a weekend.

Here's a few I liked:

Batwoman by RottenVomit

So If A Stranger Calls You . . .

When the new 52 titles were being released earlier this year, there were two main reasons I decided - after a little deliberation - to pick up Voodoo despite knowing next to nothing about the character.

One was the artist Sami Basri who has surpassed all my expectations when he replaced Amanda Conner on Power Girl, producing gorgeous, clean lined art that was different from Conner's distinctive style but which still worked on the title.

If Basri was going to be doing the art on Voodoo, that was a point in it's favour for me.

The other main reason - perhaps the biggest one - was the writer: Ron Marz.

Being a long-time DC fan, one of my favourite characters was always Green Lantern Hal Jordan. And then, in the midst of what I thought was a good run, DC elected to boot Jordan out of the title and have Marz introduce a complete new guy, someone we'd never seen before: Kyle Rayner.

All Star Western #6

From the solicitation:

"Jonah Hex fights a giant bat to the death! But even with his winged foe slain, will he and Amadeus Arkham survive being trapped in a cave with the lost tribe of Miagani Indians? Hex and Arkham must enlist help – including some familiar faces and some surprising saviors – if they’re going to make it out of this death trap and bring justice to the enslaver of Gotham’s underprivileged children."

Seriously, just that first line of "Jonah Hex fights a giant bat to the death!" should be enough for you to know you have to buy this.

Darkseid's Back

Actually, it's his front that's been revealed as DC show off Jim Lee's redesign of the DCU's big villain who, as they say, "has not appeared inside a DC comic since early 2009" . . . unless you count Justice League: Generation Lost #14 (November 2010) or DCU: Legacies #8 (February 2011) that is.

But anyway, here's the new look Darkseid:

Is it me or has the old fella put on a couple of pounds in the last couple of years when he's been hanging around in Limbo? He was always a sturdy chap but now he seems sort of . . . portly.

Still, at least he's lost the little mini-skirt he had for a while which left nothing to the imagination and led to more than one Basic Instinct style moment, like the time he flashed his own son Orion:

or when he gave Mary Marvel a bit of a shock in Countdown To Final Crisis:

No wonder she dropped her Soder Cola.

Monday Memes #46

J.G. Jones must have known he was tapping into an iconic look when he took Superman's classic flying pose and gave it to Lex Luthor on the cover of 52 #39.

And here's two cracking Green Lantern covers featuring Hal Jordan just for the heck of it.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #154

Always good to know what you're sitting on.

Too Clever For My Own Good

I really wish I hadn't made the post about that damn picture - it keeps skewing my traffic results. Look at the top keywords that brought people to the blog over the last week:

And is it just me or does anyone else wonder why someone's searching for "guy gardner in ice" or, indeed, "ice in guy gardner"?

What sort of blog do you people think I'm running here?

DC Trades

DC have released a list of the collections they'll be putting out next year, bringing together the early issues of their New 52 titles. Obviously I won't be picking up collections of the series I'm getting but there's a handful of titles that I'm sort of interested in:

The Wisdom Of Solovar

Why indeed, Solovar, why indeed?

From the strangely enjoyable Showcase Presents: The Trial of The Flash which I picked up earlier this week.

Perusing Previews - November 2011

What I know about Mouse Guard: The Black Axe is exactly what I've read in the solicitation above. Why that solicitation doesn't mention how superb the sight of a tiny mouse with a big axe hacking away at a fox is, I don't know.

Monday Memes #45

Villains taking over, or villains saying goodbye . . .

Sneaking a peek at what's inside or finding out what's showing . . .

In each case, the title of the series plays a part in the cover and I like that!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #153

Adam shows he's not best at forward planning.

Spot The Clue - The Answer

Yesterday I posted this comic strip:

which asks whether you could work out how Imago knew the bum was the criminal.

To find out, click below . . .

Spot The Clue

So I'm still trawling through those old magazines that I found after my house was turned upside down by the electricians recently and in the pages of Fantasy Adviser I came across this little strip:

I love the sound effect of "spong" when Imago punches the bum!

Anyway, I'm not having you reckless kids turn this blog upside down to find out how Imago knew the bum was the culprit - instead I'll post it tomorrow.

In the meantime, if you think you know how he knew, leave a comment.

The Graphic Novel Of The Eighties

Mention those two terms - "graphic novel" and "the 80's" - to a comics fan and chances are there'll be two or three titles that instantly spring to mind.

Watchmen, I think, is a given and possibly defines the whole decade of comics.

The Dark Knight Returns will likely be on anyone's list of 80's graphic novels.

And there's a good possibility that Maus will be on your shelves, too.

But apparently, we've all forgotten one. Not just any one, but the graphic novel of the 80!

Watchmen Poster

The rewiring work that's been done on our house recently forced me to move a whole bunch of stuff and have a bit of a clear out. One of the things I found was an issue of Arken Sword from 1988 or so that a friend of mine gave me, containing an interview with Dave Gibbons. It also had a picture featuring the Watchmen characters, including Rorschach in his original outfit:

I think the overcoat and hat works better in retrospect!

Jurgens League #6 - Blood Secrets

And here we go again, casting our eyes back over an older incarnation of the Justice League, this time from the early 90's when Dan Jurgens was in charge. With that in mind, I had to call this the

JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #76 - #77 - written by Dan Jurgens with art by Dan Jurgens and Rick Burchett.