episode 3- George Lucas is the devil

i hate this guy so much, i'll probably do another podcast on him.
GRRRRR!!!!
http://geekarama.mypodcast.com/index.html

Captain America is a SKRULL!!!!

hey everyone,
the new episode is up enjoy!!

http://geekarama.mypodcast.com/index.html

okay... i suck at blogging, but i'm trying podcasting!!

hey everyone!
i think i'm a better talker than writer so i'm trying my hand at podcasting.
here's where you can hear episode 1

http://geekarama.mypodcast.com/index.html


it's not very long and it's kinda raw, but i hope to get better in time.

check it out.
thanks,
bucky

comics, comics, comics...

I've been spending alot of time reading comics.
which ones do i like?
well.. I'm traditionally a DC guy, but i have read quite a bit of marvel over the years. i used to hate image books, but that is slowly changing thanks to robert kirkman. nowadays i read different books for different reasons and i really don't care who makes the comics as long as it's a good read. i also understand that different people will like different comics. (DC fanatics, marvel zombies, indies fans, etc.)
I'll try to explain my love of DC. when i was a kid and just started collecting comics, i was exposed to mostly marvel. their comics had such great iconic characters such as spidey, the hulk, captain america, etc...somehow though i got bored a little with reading the same old characters. the books were fun enough, i guess, but i felt like i was missing something because it didn't matter what marvel issues i picked up, the same things kept happening. with the exception of spiderman i felt the stories were going nowhere. i had started reading novels at the time and loved the idea of continuing plot and character development.(or as my young mind put it "stuff happening") then i read DC's legion of super heroes. i loved the fact that there was so many colorful heroes, each with their own back story. it was set in the future so i got my sci-fi fix. and they made numerous references to past issues. i know most comics have little blurbs to tell the reader that this villain or that villain appeared last in issue whatever, but legion had anywhere from 2 to 7 different story lines going, and they would tell you where to look to find them or which issues to get. i guess it was like watching a soap opera. i would buy back issues to see where a storyline would start and then i would get hooked on another storyline and want to see where that started. before i knew it...i was trying to collect the whole series.
this led me to try other DC heroes superman, batman, flash, etc. the thing i really enjoyed was the sense of history these characters had. they had stories that went back all the way to the 1930's. WOW!!!. there just seemed to me that marvel had these great flashy characters that went nowhere and DC had these characters with history. i think they had a stronger sense of continuity. like i was reading some giant story that was constantly growing.
now before the marvel guys start raking me over the coals, i should point out that i don't hate marvel and i think they have put out MANY, MANY classic stories. they have had wonderful artists and quite frankly, had they not rejuvenated the comics industry in the 60's, i would not be reading comics today because most likely the medium would be gone. i just feel that from the 60's to around the early 2000's marvel's style of storytelling has not changed much. (with exceptions of course).
i feel like their idea of history is keep the comics and characters just like they were in the 60's. oh sure they change them, but in the end they always change back to the way they were. even this current state of marvel, with "civil war" and the initiative, does anyone believe that the marvel universe will not be back to way it was in a few years? does anyone REALLY believe that captain america will not be back from the dead within a year or two? marvel seems to resist permanent change.
this goes back to why i like DC. they are one of the few companies that will change their entire universe if need be. take "crisis on infinite earths" in 1985. where there was a vast multiverse, now there was only one. with "52" there is now a new megaverse. DC seems to have track record of having sidekicks or others take up the role of a specific hero. my favorite example is the flash. jay garrick was the 1st. he was active in the golden age. then came barry allen for the silver age. barry had a sidekick in kid flash named wally west. eventually, wally took up the mantle of the flash from barry who died in the crisis. years later wally was replaced by bart allen (barry's grandson). now sometimes the changes are good, sometimes i don't like them. the point is the characters in DC grow and change. they are part of a legacy. i like that. the new "justice society" comic is a perfect example of this. they have over 3 generations of heroes on the team. sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of classic heroes on the team. they respect their history for the most part. marvel just seems to drop stuff right out of continuity if they don't like it. just ignore it and it will go away....how often has someone new taken up the identity of a major marvel character and kept it? not much i bet.
anyway, the comics i seem to enjoy the most these days are:

from DC
legion of super heroes (of course!)
justice society of america
flash
manhunter (one of my new favorites!!!)
firestorm (recently cancelled "sigh")
justice league of america
the all new atom
blue beetle
checkmate!
countdown (the new weekly comic)
birds of prey
brave and the bold
trials of shazam!
jsa classified

from vertigo
fables
jack of fables

from marvel
moon knight
punisher
the irredeemable ant-man (love robert kirkman's writing)
squadron supreme

from dark horse
buffy the vampire slayer season 8

from image
invincible (kirkman again)
walking dead (that kirkman guy gets around)
astounding wolf-man (enough with the kirkman already!!!!)
dynamo 5
madman atomic comics (he's back yea!!!)

other publishers
battlestar galactica
star trek
transformers (i like licensed properties)
army of darkness
nexus

i didn't count the numerous mini-series i read cause that would take forever! i also am probably sure i missed some other series, but will add them as i remember them.

anyway....tell me what books you like and why!
later....

(this post is dedicated to my pal macguffin, who is slowly being dragged kicking and screaming back into comics) welcome back to the dark side buddy!!!

QUICK!! into the TARDIS!!!

Okay, I know it's been awhile, but I've been having so much fun!
Doing what you ask?
Well....I've been spending most of my days watching DOCTOR WHO. Yeah, that's right, I said Doctor Who. What?!? That loser show that only the lowest form of geek watches. The show so bad and cheesy that American audiences stay away from it in droves? Yep! I'm a fan. Let me see if I can explain......

I'll start at the beginning. (bear with me)

I had seen a few episodes of the good Doctor on PBS when I was a kid and didn't give them much thought. Then like every other kid I saw Star Wars in the theater. It blew me away! Aliens! Spaceships! An exciting story! (okay...I was 7 yrs old..anything seemed like a good story at the time). That started my interest in science fiction. I also started reading comics at around the same time, but I consider that a different animal. After Star Wars, I got hooked on Battlestar Galactica, (the fact that it's NOT a rip-off of Star Wars is going to be the subject of another post). I saw Star Trek: the motion picture. I saw Flash Gordon, Buck Rodgers, etc.

My love of sci-fi was growing. (but what about Doctor Who? I'm getting there, don't worry)

Funny thing...even as a youngster, action in sci-fi movies got me hooked, but that could only take you so far. As a young teen, I needed more.

I discovered Star Trek: the original series.

Oh sure, the production values where cheap, the acting was hammy, but underneath it all they were telling, what i thought, were good, compelling stories. I must not be alone in these feelings because look at the popularity of Trek today. Now I admit Star Trek 2: the wraith of khan reeled me in to Trek, what with the action and comedy and all, but that made me want to know more about Star Trek. That movie being a sequel of not just the last movie, but of an episode of the old show (space seed) just made me want to know more. It was my first taste of continuity in a series. I watched as much of the old Trek as I could, and when Star Trek: the next generation premiered, I felt I could get more out of that show than the average viewer because of my trek knowledge.

I became a full fledged "Trekkie" or "Trekker" if you like. My love for Trek continues to this day (although my enthusiasm for it has waned a little in recent years)

The bad part of all this is that GREAT shows were being seen across the pond (the Prisoner, the Avengers, Blake's 7, and of course Doctor Who!), but access to these shows was hard to come by. I wasn't even aware of most of them.

Now...as an adult and after watching countless sci-fi movies and TV shows, and loving the serial nature and strong continuity of shows like Babylon 5, Star Trek:deep space nine, and the new Battlestar Galactica, I wanted more.

I'm going to go off on a little tangent here.

I feel that the state of writing for sci-fi shows, and really movies and TV in general, has been dumbed down to a great degree. There are always exceptions, of course. For every great show like Farscape, or X-files, or Buffy, there are shows like Charmed, Supernatural, Invasion, that are downright silly. (this is just my opinion, of course. If you are a fan of these shows..GREAT! They just don't appeal to me) movies like Gone in 60 seconds (long on action, short on plot or logic) leave me cold. As American TV gets worse and worse, and networks don't give good shows much of a chance to find an audience, (Firefly anyone?) I started to look elsewhere for new ideas and concepts in my sci-fi. (England, Japan, etc.) anywhere that doesn't have the same tired old stuff that American TV kept forcing down our throats.

Then it happened!

Years ago I discovered the Prisoner. It was so unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was so surreal, and thought provoking. I was hooked! Later, I found the Avengers. I thought "man, these Brits come up with some crazy ideas". More and more I found that I was enjoying British TV. Everything from Are you being served? to Coupling, to Spaced, to one of my new all time favorites Red Dwarf! If you like the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, you will love Red Dwarf. It took sci-fi cliches and turned them on their head. Funny, Funny, stuff! The way the Brits mixed sci-fi and comedy was remarkable to me.
The originality of shows like Red Dwarf got me digging deeper. It was inevitable that I would come across Doctor Who.

By this time, the new Doctor Who series was in it's second season (with David Tennant replacing Christopher Eccleston) and I thought "well, what the hell....I'll give it a shot". I watched a few episodes and thought what fun lighthearted fare. The effects were pretty good, the stories were a good mixture of drama, adventure, and comedy. The acting was inspired (especially the Doctor played by Tennant). This show felt fresh and new. I watched all the episodes I had missed as fast as I could. The clincher for me was the fact that instead of starting the show over from scratch when they relaunched it, they just continued from the old series. That series ran from 1963 to 1989. Then there was a TV movie from Fox/BBC in 1996 that was supposed to be a pilot for a new series. The movie bombed with American audiences (no surprise there) and doctor who did not come back as a series until 2005. It's a big hit in the UK and with it airing on the sci-fi channel and BBC America it's finally doing well here in the states.

I guess I'm not the only one who is looking for something new in sci-fi these days.

The Doctor Who series is once again a full fledged franchise with at least two spin-offs (the Sarah Jane Smith adventures and Torchwood) with a third spin-off in the works.(K-9) The third season of Doctor Who (or season 29 if you are a real fan) is currently airing in the UK and will be shown in America this summer. Torchwood is going to air on BBC America soon. Torchwood is kinda like the X-files, but smarter. It's great for people who like horror themed shows. It's tone is completely different from Doctor Who, but it is set in the same universe (Whoniverse?).

The fact that I enjoyed the new series so much made me want to track down as many of the old Doctor Who stories as possible. Thank the great maker for downloads! I now have all the old shows from 1963 to date. Many of the original shows were destroyed, but with fans and companies like Loose Canon using audio and stills,and publicity photos, they have reconstructed all the old missing stories up to the point where the show was produced in color. It's like Star Trek all over again for me in that I want to know as much about the history of Doctor Who's universe as possible. Even from the start in 1963 the show had a remarkable sense of continuity. In fact, one episode would usually lead into the next. AWESOME! I hated that while Star Trek has a developed universe, the characters very rarely changed or grew. You could sit down and watch any episode, in any order, and not miss a beat. With Doctor Who the stories were in a serial format where the ending scene would also be the beginning scene in the next episode or serial.

By the way, Star Trek is credited (rightfully so) for being one of the first sci-fi shows to tackle "real-world" events in their stories. Star Trek is also considered one of the first to have thought provoking episodes that challenged the viewers. Doctor Who premiered 3 years prior to Star Trek and was already challenging UK viewers with good stories even before Kirk, Spock and the rest started exploring strange new worlds! Doctor Who is brilliant in it's conception. Here is an alien that can travel anywhere in time or space. You have monsters and aliens in one serial, the roman empire the next. You can tell ANY kind of story in this format. But wait! What if the actor playing the Doctor wants to leave the show? Do you change actors and ignore the fact that it's someone else playing the part (like James Bond)? Nope..since the Doctor is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, when the actor is ready to leave, he just regenerates into his new form (the new actor).BRILLIANT!! I tell you! There have been 10 actors to play the Doctor so far. Any other show would be crippled with the loss of the lead actor, but not Doctor Who! it just keeps going.

I think it's fair to say the health of this franchise is in better shape than most (including Star Trek)

I can't believe how much I love this show and I haven't even finished watching the first Doctor stories from the sixties yet. I can't wait to see the later stuff, the Tom Baker stories especially. I have a TARDIS (time and relative dimensions in space) toy. I have my very own Dalek toy, a Cyberman too! I even have a sonic screwdriver prop. I love this show, LOVE it!

This is the most excited I've been about a sci-fi property since I was a teen first discovering Star Trek. I have that sense of wonder again! WHOOOOHOOOO!!!!
If you would like to know more about the Doctor and his world, I encourage you to check out gallifreyone.com or wiki Doctor Who, or any of the MANY websites devoted to the Doctor.

Now i gotta get back to watching those shows........LATER!

"How i love wednesdays" or "Comic book persecution"

Wednesday is my favorite day of the week!
Why you ask?
Because it's new comic day!!!
I love going into my favorite comics store and hand-picking my books for that week. Seeing all the new stuff, checking out the covers, talking nerdy comics stuff with fellow comic nerds, (except those like in pookie's blog Pookies_World- look at blog titled-Weirdness Magnet, Anyone? ). We say stuff like "who is the more powerful cosmic entity, Galactus or Darkseid?" "who's faster, the Flash or Superman?" "which company is better, Marvel or DC?" Stuff like that.

I still remember people making fun of me when I was younger, saying comics are stupid, comics are for kids, shit like that. Now, with all the great comics related TV shows and movies out there, comic book awareness is on the rise. HOORAY! Most would still rather sit down and watch a Spider-man movie then pick up a Spidey comic, but I think that says more about our society's collective inability to read, than the quality of "that there funnybook".

Trust me folks, comics have grown up by leaps and bounds.

People still make fun of me now as an adult saying.."how can you like that kiddie stuff?" "aren't you too old for comics?" "have you ever seen the outside of your mother's basement?" "have you ever kissed a girl?"

Well....I'm happily married, my mom doesn't have a basement (she has a dungeon), and no, I'm not too old for comics, and neither are you. I watch football and drink beer like any other guy. I look just like anyone else, except when I wear a comic book themed shirt or cap. That's the only way to identify me as a comic geek. When I meet some idiot who asks me that kind of crap I say "have you watched 300?.....it's a comics book. or have you seen sin city?....it's a comic book. or even road to perdition?....yep, you guessed it, comic book." (or graphic novel, if you're uppity)

and please don't pass judgements on me for being a comic book fan while you're in line buying tickets for ghost rider. People can be such morons!!!

Look, I'm a comic fan and I will always be a comic fan. In other countries (Japan, for instance), comics are a legitimate source of entertainment for adults, as well as kids. Please don't use that double standard of bashing my passion for comics for being "lowbrow" when you sit at home watching "reality" television like american idol or wife swap. That's great if ya like it, but watching that makes you no better than someone watching soaps, or reading romance novels, or writing blogs, or enjoying comics.

It's ALL entertainment, and if it brings you joy doing it, and doesn't hurt others,

GO FOR IT!

Next time, I'll post about a specific subject.

i just don't know what....(star trek, battlestar galactica, doctor who, marvel, DC, captain america, lost, heroes, transformers, spidey 3, politics,etc, etc, etc,) the list goes on.......

TURTLE POWER!!!!

hey everyone,
I'm gonna try out this whole blogging thing.

thanks to some not-so-subtle prodding from my friends (I'm looking at you daveyyojimbo, mob), i will try to be your geek headquarters for all kinds of stuff. I'll cover comics, movies and TV, books, and give my unwanted opinion every so often. so bear with me as i learn this stuff on the fly. I'll take any tips or help i can get.
okay...first up, the new TMNT movie.



i like the turtles, i do, but this film left me a little cold. let me state for the record that i applaud the use of CGI for a turtles movie. i even like that they resemble the comic versions a bit (except for the color coded masks). they even have the voice characterizations right, and they left out repeated uses of "COWABUNGA!!!!". this movie tried to use a little bit of everything from all versions of the turtles (movies, cartoons, comics, etc.). they did not use the movie to retell the origin of the turtles for the millionth time. i swear, their origin is as well known as superman's. or spider-man's...

anyway....i think it's the writing and story that get to me. the latest animated version of the turtles gets it right. they feel more like fleshed out characters than cartoons. maybe it's the format. the recent cartoon has continuing storylines, where the new film feels like you are getting onboard in the middle of the story. the whole thing feels rushed.
who knows...I'm probably in the minority about the movie. i did like it, but maybe i was expecting more. i hope the sequel will be better. they at least set it up so that shredder will return. he was always the best villain for the turtles...well, except for vanilla ice! "ninja... ninja... RAP!!!"