Jul 30 2018

Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers TL;DR

OK, so I thought this was going to be a Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers cartoon. It’s not. But it does animate Throg, which is awesome.

I love love love love this comic. So while the title implies that you aren’t going to read it, you should. You should buy it for your kids because it’s totally kid-friendly. It’s also adult-friendly. It’s a true all-ages comic!

The concept is simple: the animal sidekicks of various heroes get to be a superteam. If that doesn’t sound great to you, your loss. If it does, pick up a copy of the trade paperback and enjoy.

Description:

And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth’s mightiest heroes were unaware of a threat greater than all of them could handle. And on that day, a teleporting puppy scoured the world to assemble a team of animals to fight the foes no single beast could withstand! Strap on your collar and hop on-board the adventures of LOCKJAW, LOCKHEED, REDWING, HAIRBALL, and an all-new FROG THOR! Collects Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers #1-4.

Right?!?!??!?

Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers

There’s even a sequel!

Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers Unleashed (UnLEASHed – get it?)

 


Nov 10 2016

Daredevil Digital Comics Sale

Amazon is having a Daredevil digital comics sale. There are other titles available, but the ones I’m interested in are Daredevil.

Picture of Gen Con Indy 2008 in Indianapolis, ...

Picture of Gen Con Indy 2008 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(Note: the guy above is not Daredevil, because Daredevil isn’t real. Good costume though.)

For some reason Daredevil lends itself to amazing story-telling. A blind lawyer who can kindasorta see and has ninja-like skills? Sure, why not? But seriously, these are literally some of the greatest comic books ever written/drawn.

Daredevil by Frank Miller

The Frank Miller/Klaus Janson comics should be required reading for everyone. For now, I’ll have to settle for sales such as this one and hope that causes more people to read the comics. The Brian Bendis/Alex Maleev books are also damn good. For me, the Miller stuff is better, in part because it blew my mind when I was a kid, but also because I think it’s just better. No disrespect to Mr. Bendis or Mr. Maleev, who are obviously insanely talented. It’s just… these comics… wow. Got me where I live when I was a lad, and reading them now, they still do.

There might be some other stuff available as well. The DD books (digital books, via Kindle) are half off. $9.99 is a freakin’ bargain for a collection of comic book epicness. Poke around and see if there’s anything you like. Comic books, especially great ones like these, are an excellent distraction from reality. You know what I mean.

Online shopping from a great selection at Marvel Featured Collections Store.

Source: Amazon.com: Marvel Featured Collections


Jul 03 2016

Lots of Star Trek Comics for Not Much Money

Wants lots of Star Trek comics for not much money? We gotcha covered.

English: Fireworks

English: Fireworks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, Humble Bundle does.

What’s Humble Bundle? Read on.


Pay what you want for Star Trek comics and support charity!

Humble Bundle is… well, here’s a quote from their web site:

At Humble Bundle, we put the power directly in the hands of consumers. You pay what you want for downloadable content and choose where your money goes. Through this model and the help of the Humble Bundle community, we’ve raised over $75M for charity.
So how does it work? We put together bundles of games and books that can be purchased at whatever price you think is fair. Once you’ve chosen a price, you can choose whether you want your money to go to the game developer or book publisher, charity, or Humble Bundle. We also offer the Humble Store, a digital storefront that features individual games at set prices with frequent discounts and a portion of sales going to select charities.

No idea what I’m talking about, orjust want me to cut to the chase? Basically, Humble Bundle gets a bunch of stuff (video games, comics, books) bundles them together and allows people (you) to pay whatever they want for it. The money goes to charity, and you get to decide what percentage of your money goes where. It’s very easy and you get to feel good about consuming mass quantities of digital stuffs because it’s for charity. Also you get a lot for your money.

In this case, we’re talking about $351 worth of digital comics for… well, the most anyone has paid as of this writing is $51.06. The average is $14.26. All Star Trek comics. I’ve read some of them and “Star Trek/Planet of the Apes: The Primate Directive” is worth $14.26 all by itself. (Seriously. It’s really fun. Much better than it has any right to be.) The same could be said for “Star Trek: Year Four“, which is a comic book version of the fourth year of the Enterprise’s five-year mission. (Remember? it was a five-year mission that was canceled by the Gods of Television.) A lot of the others are good too, and those are just the comics I’ve read. You get a LOT MORE.

Check it out. Share with your kids. It’s easy because the comics are provided with no DRM, meaning you can copy them to whatever device you choose. If you go above a certain amount you even get a print book.

It’s a good deal, folks. Check it out. Limited time offer; your mileage may vary. DaddyTips takes no responsibility for anything.

Source: Humble Comics Bundle: Star Trek presented by IDW (pay what you want and help charity)

Star Trek Comics on Amazon


Feb 12 2016

Deadpool Good. Don’t Take The Kids.

You may have heard that there is a movie based on the comic book character known as Deadpool. I have seen it. It is good. It is not for children. Don’t take the kids. Leave the kids at home. Can we be more clear?

Deadpool Infographic - Douchebags and Heroes

That’s not to say the Deadpool movie isn’t childish. It’s totally childish, in the best way. (See this Nerdist review for more.) I’ve often said that video games should have an “IM” rating for “Immature” instead of “M” for “Mature”, because often “Mature” means dirty jokes and boobies. The Deadpool movie has both of those, but it also does a nice job of showing the darker side of the title character, showing that it would kind of suck to be Wade Wilson.

More importantly for ‘Pool fans (of which I am one), the movie hits a lot of things from the comic books from which DP spawned (including the whole “it would suck to be Wade Wilson” part). That’s something that a lot of the reviews I’ve been reading seem to forget, or perhaps the critics simply don’t know the source material. (“Use the Source, Luke.”) Deadpool doesn’t break the fourth wall because the filmmakers thought it would be “cute” or “subversive”, he does it because that’s how the character is written. He knows he’s in a comic book, therefore he knows he’s in a movie. It’s a fairly simple concept that has huge potential, some of which was realized in this movie.

Also worth mentioning is that the Deadpool movie is not excessively long. It’s under two hours, which these days feels like a gift. We all know I loved The Avengers movie, and that was a long flick. But there’s something to be said for leaving people wanting more instead of dragging on for too long.

Something else: can we get some love for Leslie Uggams? She makes a great Blind Al, and the filmmakers manage to work her into the movie seamlessly, which was a pleasant surprise. I’m a little annoyed that she isn’t getting more attention. Here’s a classic video of her from a long time ago when she messed up the lyrics to a song but kept going anyway. I like Leslie. Always have.

The entire cast is solid, but Ryan Reynolds and T.J. Miller are getting enough press. Let’s hear it for Leslie Uggams!

Bottom line: the Deadpool movie is fun, violent, and not for young kids. You could do worse for a Valentine’s Day date film, depending upon who your date is.

If you want to pick up a good Deadpool comic, this one, the start of a fantastic run by Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn, with art by Tony Moore (at least for awhile), is a good place to start: Deadpool Vol.1: Dead Presidents, currently available for only $3.99 on Comixology/Kindle, which is a freakin’ bargain. You can read the entire run via Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, which I’ve gone on and on about and is still a great deal.

I leave you with this image. It has nothing to do with Deadpool, it is a public domain image of a comic book featuring characters that are unlikely to ever get any screen time at all. Although Magno & Davey does have a certain ring to it…

FourFavorites0801

FourFavorites0801 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


Aug 31 2015

Grumpy Cat Is Getting a Comic

This was announced awhile ago, and more info was revealed during San Diego Comic Con, but I only just noticed because it’s not something I track very closely. But for fans of the cantankerous kitty, here is some exciting news: Grumpy Cat is getting a comic.

SDCC: Dynamite Entertainment Announces Full Creative Team for Grumpy Cat #1 – Grumpy Cat contributors include Ben Fisher, Agnes Garbowska, Ben McCool and more and features multiple variant covers, including a Create-Your-Own-Meme.

There are numerous variant covers, but this one by series artist Ken Haeser, is my favorite.

Grumpy Cat #1 Cover B

 

Because someone is asking for help and Super Grumpy Cat says no. Hee.

This quote from the article on Comic Book Resources also amused me:

Tavis Maiden (cover artist): “This is literally the first thing I’ve worked on that my kids think is cool.”

Grumpy Cat #1 hits comic book shops in October.

Source: SDCC: Dynamite Entertainment Announces Full Creative Team for “Grumpy Cat” #1 – Comic Book Resources


May 08 2015

Avengers: Age of Ultron Link Roundup (Ongoing) – UPDATED

Now that Avengers: Age of Ultron is finally here, and I’ve seen it (twice), I can start reading about it until my eyeballs fall out. This page will have an an ongoing list of links to some of what I’ve read that I found interesting.

Me and The Avengers movie.

Personally I prefer The Avengers. Have I mentioned that lately?

UPDATED 5/11/15 (new links after the break; you can tell they’re new because they say NEW LINK.)

As you know, I frickin’ LOVED The Avengers, the first one. To say that Avengers: Age of Ultron isn’t quite as good as the first film is like saying I’m shorter than Shaquille O’Neal. Or, to ever-so-slightly borrow a joke from the movie, that this blog post will be shorter than a Eugene O’Neill play. Bottom line: it was a lot of fun, Joss Whedon did a nice job of balancing all of the myriad demands of a film with a ton of characters and future Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to promote, and I’ve already seen the movie twice and would gladly see it again.

As expected with a summer blockbuster, especially a follow-up to a film as great as The Avengers, the Interwebs are filled with articles and blog posts and charts and click-bait about all things Ultron. I went on Rotten Tomatoes planning to read a few reviews. I got as far as one before being sucked into a rabbit hole (maybe I should say tesseract instead) of Age of Ultron related topics.

Oh, the obligatory Spoiler Alert from this point forward. I’m not going to bother watching what I say about the movie, although this isn’t a review and odds are I won’t reveal anything particularly important. But if you haven’t seen the movie yet and prefer to do so without knowing anything about what happens, stop reading now. Then come back. Don’t worry. We’ll wait. Read more »


May 04 2015

Age of Ultron Hard on Joss Whedon Because He Has a Family

Avengers: Age of Ultron ruled the box office this weekend. And before that, it ruled director Joss Whedon‘s life. This was, according to the director, difficult on him because he has a family. Here’s what he said in an interview:

English: Joss Whedon at the 2010 Comic Con in ...

English: Joss Whedon at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“When I watch it, I just see ‘flaw, flaw, flaw, compromise, laziness, mistake,’” said Whedon. “The reason I set out to make another film is because I wanted to make one that was better, and I wanted to up my game as a shooter and work harder on every aspect of it and sort of give myself up to it in a way that’s hard for me, because I have a family. I started as a writer in low-budget TV, and there was always this element of, ‘This is good enough.’ And with this movie, I never wanted to say, ‘This is good enough.’” (emphasis added)

And now the explanation. Read more »