So after reading this, I came up with a few very painfully obvious indicators that you have begun heading down the inescapable path towards a nerd. Keep in mind that all of these things, save for one item, are ripped straight out of the pages of my own life.

1. The majority of your CDs are Japanese importted OSTs.

2. Your contribution to any conversation among friends following a viewing of the newest big-budget Hollywood super hero adaptation always starts with "See, in the comic book..."

3. You still watch Smallville.

4. You were a regular viewer of Veronic Mars, but had a crush on Mac instead of Veronica.

5. Similarly, you were a regular viewer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but had a crush on Alison Hannigan instead of Sarah Michelle Geller.

6. The most used tag used in your LibraryThing.com account is "comics".

7. The most used tag used in your LibraryThing.com account is "manga".

8. The fact that you even have a LibraryThing.com account.

9. Attractive women/men making reference to Star Wars excites you sexually.

10. Attractive women making reference to Star Trek is par for the course.

11. You know what Go-Rangers are.

12. You know who Captain Harlock is.

13. You lay awake at night thinking about the differences between Macross & Robotech.

14. You lay awake at night thinking about who would win in a fight - Hulk or the Thing.

15. You lay awake at night thinking about who would win in a fight between Superman & Thor, but then quickly assuage your concern by reminding yourself that it doesn't matter since they exist in two separate universes.

16. Your dream job is working in the Gundam super-store in Osaka, Japan.

17. You know that next week's new comic book day is Thursday, not the usual Wednesday.

18. The underwear you've been wearing for the past few days begins to smell like a Port Authority bathroom.

19. You get emotional over thinking about Newsarama's lack of an RSS feed.

20. You use the terms "pwn3d" or "IRL" regularly.

21. In a moment of emotional & psychological weakness, you begin to think that Welcome to the NHK is actually an anime adaptation of your life story beamed into your television/computer from the far-off future.

22. Your other car is a TARDIS.

23. You have a sci-fi/fantasy/comic book/LOST blog.

24. Your summer job throughout most of high school was working the rennaisance fair, and you "score chicks" by making Lord of the Rings references.

25. You continually get into heated arguments with complete strangers because they don't understand that the Flash is the greatest super hero character of all time.

26. You have at one time in your life compiled a list longer than 4 entries, of your favorite Flashes in descending order.

27. You regularly use the Justice League track jacket you bought at the last comic convention as a conversation starter.

28. You wish that the Justice League track jacket you bought at the last comic convention could actually get you laid.

29. Any of the items on this list made you laugh out loud in that "It's funny because it's true!" kind of way.

30. Shortly after laughing, any of the items on this list make you cry in that "It's sad because it's true..." kind of way.

This one goes out to you Mallet. I may not be white, and I may not be over-weight, but I'm still a complete nerd through-and-through. We stand united, brother.

Powered by ScribeFire.

So EW.com (link via Blog@Newsarama) has an interview with Eric Johnson, star of the Sci-Fi network's new Flash Gordon series.

I particularly like this bit:

What’s the mode of transport here?

It’s the old wormhole. Flash’s father was a scientist who was developing the technology. I thought he was lost in a fire, but it turns out he was sucked through this wormhole that he created. So now after 13 years, something came back through, and that something is not so nice, and it’s looking for me.

Now, is it me, or does this sound like the premise for a new season of Doctor Who? I don't know. Maybe I'm just obsessed. But whenever I hear "...something came back through, and that something is not so nice, and it's looking for me," it just reminds me of this, this, and this.

Also, if you replace "wormhole" with "Zeta Beam", the young Flash Gordon all of a sudden sounds like a teenage Adam Strange.

Also Flash gets a T-Bird.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Forbidden Planet (the best comic book/sci-fi blog in town - and by town I mean INTERNET) has an excellent post on Filipino cartoonist Gerry Alanguilan. Not only do they mention Alanguilan's excellent series Elmer, they give heavy props to the his work on "The Philippine Comics Art Museum" and Komikero, his excellent, excellent blog.

Gerry Alanguilan is one of those cartoonists that really knows his shit inside and out. He's flawless in his approach to craft (in terms of education and dedication of and towards the creative process), and he maintains an inspiring amount of reverence to some of the most talented, but overlooked cartooning masters to come out of his (and essentially my own) home country, the Philippines.

I've mentioned before (can't locate link...) that unlike most Filipino Americans my age, I don't speak nor can I read a lick of Tagalog. I started speaking and reading English at a fairly early age, and when it came time for me to attend pre-school, a lot of my teacher's were concerned because I kept confusing which words belonged to which language. Also, Tagalog is not my mother's native dialect, and it was easier for her (and my father who had to bear with her "mistakes") to communicate with me in pure English.

For this reason, I again petition the komikeros and the publishers to at least think about translating some of this stuff for U.S. distribution. I think both fans and publisher will be surprised by not only the quality of these works, but also the familiarity. As Alanguilan's Philippines Comics Museum is quick to point out, a lot of American comic work was being done by Filipino artists.

In the meantime, I will have to make due with re-reading my Siglo anthologies, and Alanguilan's excellent, excellent Elmer comic (currently only available here in the States through Independent Propaganda). Elmer is definitely in my top 10 favorite comics coming out right now, so do yourself a favor and check it out and check out the Komikero blog.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Ok, so following up Eli's post about Marvel's new pro-tentacle porn stance, here are three quick thoughts on Marvel's solicitations (I'm not even touching the Captain America cover, because I still maintain that Brubaker is the Jay-Z of the spandex set, right now).

New Fucking Thor!

This new book by David Lapham, Terror, Inc., looks as equally as "innovative" as World War Hulk, but, judging from this cover, will be worth it because it appeals to my worst childhood obsessions - futuristic weaponry, rotting corpse as anti-hero. Plus, David Lapham, not writing an continuity heavy, tie-in book? Sign me the fuck up!

Powered by ScribeFire.

Apparently, the US manga market is doing so well that Tokyopop doesn't feel the need to conform to Western Societies quirks:

Apparently, Del Rey and Viz don't seem to have this problem. They would actually like their books to be catalogged and put in libraries & such. I guess at this rate, the libraries don't really have a choice, but c'mon! Help a brother out.

P.S. I hate your logo!

Powered by ScribeFire.

Those of you who knew me, know that I have a tendency to become momentarily fixated on things. Some people call them "obsessions". I don't like to refer to them as such, simply because the word "obsession" insinuates that these fixations last over an extended period of time. "Momentary fixation" or "momentary infatuation" tends to sum up my condition the most appropriately.

Around the years 2003/2004 (the year Eli and I shared a house) I have quite a few fixations that my roommates were more than well aware of. The two most prominent, aside from my daily experiments in finding new ways to ingest Ramen, were David Cronenberg's 1981 film Scanners and the Timmverse Justice League cartoon. I had even brought along VHS tapes I had painstakingly editted, of redesigned Batman: TAS episodes not yet available on DVD (you think that's nerdy, you should have seen the VHS "best-of mix" I made for Eli the following year).

Little did I realize at the time, however, that three years after the fact those to specific fixations would collide into a frenzy of... Oh fuck it.

Michael "Daniel Revick" Ironside (pictured left) did the voice work for "80s Batman" in the amazing "Legends of the Dark Knight" episode. For those unfamiliar with the episode, the basic premise is that three children recant vastly different interpretations of the "mythylogical" Batman. One being based on the Batman of the 60s, the other being based on the "grim-'n-gritty" Batman of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returs, and the other just being a boring old shadow monster with pointy ears & fangs. Most notable about this episode, other than the fact that Ironside's Batman is so amazingly dead-on, is the barely obscured back hand directed towards Batman Forever/Batman & Robin director Joel Schumacher.

Even more amazing than this particular tidbit, was the fact that Revick...I mean, Ironside also did the voice for Darkseid in the final seasons of the Timmverse Superman, Justice League, and of course Justice League Unlimited. This of course explains why every time I watch the series finale, my nose bleeds a little.

Ironside seems like quite the accomplished thespian. Of course, by "accomplished thespian" I mean NERD. This in no way is meant to invalidate his career. In fact, I had no idea he had bit parts in some of my favorite childhood films, like Top Gun, Highlander II, and The Next Karate Kid - which was the film debut of another giant set of teeth, I mean thespian, Hilary Swank. Also, Ironside was in V. You can't beat that.

Right now it looks as if I may have to print out this IMDB entry and just hit up the local video store, making a weekend of it.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Powered by ScribeFire.

I really really hope that DC's new maxi-series, Countdown, can sustain its own weight. In many ways its predecessor, 52, was almost Homeric in tone, detailing the journey of the DCU over the "lost" year. Unfortunately though, a Homeric epic doesn't quite work without the presence of the Divine. Sure in 52 there was plenty of mysticism, but very rarely did we see any real characters that encompassed that level of godly power. Essentially it was quiet coming-of-age story. You can jam pack with all the chaos and craziness you want, but plastering "World War III" on the cover four comic books doesn't automatically give it emotional impact

Countdown could have the very same problem of faltering under its own weight. 52 issues of a comic gives you plenty of room for a story to degenerate into something unrecognizable. I think 52's biggest problem was its constant need to adhere to the concept of "real time". Countdown, in its first issue, has already freed itself from this, by presenting a very brief moment in time. It doesn't jump in time in space the way 52's first issue did, in an attempt to display the "grand" scope of itself. If Paul Dini continues to do his job right, this story will be aware of its own portentousness, but won't need to use it's self-awareness as a crutch.

Already, in issue #51, its proven itself capable of the kind of pacing required in a epic. The ending of 52 left so many DC fans with low expectations, regardless of the DC/Warner Bros. hype machine's efforts. Lower expectations makes the task of telling an epic story that much easier. With 52 and Infinite Crisis, we were constantly too aware of how large the story was supposed to be. With Countdown we are slightly less aware. Countdown is not about defining or redefining the DCU. It's simply a story set in the DCU. It's the same reason that Identity Crisis and Countdown to Infinite Crisis was far more powerful and effective than the Infinite Crisis mini-series itself.

Hopefully Countdown can keep the work up. This first issue, along with the three big reveals, contains some damn solid writing on the part of Dini, as well as maybe the first comic where I actually enjoyed looking at Jesus Saiz's art. I'm excited to see what Sean McKeever will be doing with the story. I wasn't too impressed with his work with World War III, but I am a huge fan of his Spiderman Loves Mary Jane work, so I have faith that when presented with a better story, he can really produce.

Right now, it's obviously way too early to tell how well Countdown is going to work as a story, but taking into account only the first issue, I'd have to say I'm pretty curious/excited to see what is going to come out next.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Are there any more zombie-genre stories left to tell? The medium of comics has recently been over-saturated with generic zombie story, after generic zombie story, culminating in Marvel's Marvel Zombies. At this point, everyone seems to be sick of them, but are we sick of zombie stories, or is there anything left out there that could possibly breathe life into this seemingly (un)dead sub-genre.

Granted, there are a few good zombie books being put out right now. The drama-level of Robert Kirkman's Romero-worshipping The Walking Dead

remains consistent, but about half-way through the series, it lost it's moral footing. The gray areas became too gray. The character flaws have come to define the characters, rather than simply flesh them out. It has degenerated from a book that featured zombies, to a book that is about zombies.

Arguably, none of George Romero's classic zombie films have ever really been about zombies, just like no science-fiction story set in the future is really about the future. The zombies were more scenery than anything. The created an environment in which specific social issues could be tackled. That is why, unlike a long-form ongoing comic book series, they only last two hours. To extend the story beyond that would be hitting your audience over the head with a hammer. But without moral conviction, Romero inspired zombie stories have virtually nothing to offer us.

On the other hand, European styled zombie stories (a la Zeder or Zombi) have certain aesthetic strengths that their American cousins are lacking in. Warren Ellis' Black Gas mini-series has been a perfect example of this aesthetic translated to the printed comic page. The moral footing of these kinds of stories is a bit shakier, boiling down to 'everyone's a fucker', which Ellis pulls off perfectly (again). The biggest difference, however, is in its attention to the aesthetics of horror. Euro-zombie stories are supposed to be genuinely scary and/or creepy. You'd think that this kind of storytelling would prove so effortless for cartooning, since you essentially can create any mood or atmosphere that you desire without having to expand a SFX budget.

At the end of the day, however, the problem is not zombies, but too strong a focus on zombies. Even Black Gas seems to have the problem of pacing a story along with featuring enough zombie eating flesh moments on top of that. The most exciting of zombie stories prove that.

Jason's The Living and the Dead, and Brain Ralph's post-zombie-apocalypse story Daybreak, are fresh new zombie stories that work. Both stories use the zombies as little more than window-dressing, giving the narrative a bit of an extra 'umph', but are capable of standing on their own. If only there were more people willing to tell stories (zombie or not) like these two, I would be buying a lot more comics right now.

What we love about zombie movies is the zombies themselves, but unfortunately that is hardly ever what makes a movie worth watching or a comic worth reading. The zombie is a trope that works because it can easily be connected with various other tropes of almost any genre within fantastic/speculative fiction.

So to answer my question, there are more zombie stories out there to tell, but nobody seems to be imaginative or clever enough to come up with them. Until then, the genre will remain another ghetto the comics medium has tried to cash-in on and destroyed in the process. It will take an unbelievable amount of talent and craft to ressurect zombie fiction.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Powered by ScribeFire.