Ben Templesmith drew Batman

And this was GOOD!

AT-AT Day Afternoon

This is the cutest thing you're likely to see all day.

Random Screen Grab

MLZ! WWJD! CSMT!

It's a shirt that combines the Major League Baseball logo with a zombie. The only way this could've been cooler is if the player was holding an axe or machete or something. Or of course it it was a mix of the NHLPA logo and a zombie. Hockey and zombies might be a little too awesome for the universe to contain, so this is probably safer.



This one quite frankly speaks for itself, and if you can't see all of it's awesomeness then I'm sad for you.



My love for The Monster Squad is a love that I proclaim to anyone willing to listen. When I was a kid, I'd watch that movie damn near daily. Where else was I gonna get Dracula, Wolfman, The Mummy, Frankenstein, AND the Creature from the Black Lagoon all in one place? And on top of that, the monsters were going up against a group of kids most of whom were right about my age. My tiny brain was overwhelmed with excitement every single time. This shirt is a quote from that movie, and is awesome, and can be found over at Fright Rags, where you can also get What Would Jason Do? and many other shirts of varying levels of awesome.

Countdown to 50k!

This time last year, I made a commitment to push my Xbox Live gamerscore past 40k by the end of the year. I was somewhere around 37k when I set the goal. If I were still strictly a 360 gamer, this wouldn't have even been a challenge, but being that I split my gaming pretty much 50/50 between the 360 and PS3 I thought it might be a little tougher to achieve.

It ended up being not much trouble. I think I ended the year around 43k or in that ballpark. So here we are at the halfway mark of 2010, and I'm sitting at 47,247...I'm sure you can see where this is headed. That's right folks, I'm gonna shoot for 50k. Only this time I'm not going to be giving myself such a generous time cushion, I want 50k by Halloween. Still probably generous, but it's better than 6 months right?

I'm not entirely sure what games I'll be playing for the remainder of this year. Mass Effect 2 is currently taking up almost all of my 360 gaming time, Metro 2033 will likely be next and Lost Planet 2 at some point after that. Most of the bigger titles I'll be playing on PS3, so we'll see how it goes. In any event I'll be updating here as I go along, so everybody start placing bets on whether or not I fail at yet another goal I've set for myself!

Targeted by the Porn Industry

It would appear that after years of being almost completely ignored by the porn industry, I've finally shown up on their radar...and they're *ahem* coming after me hard...

How else do you explain this?!





Or this?!

Arkham Asylum Madness

Last night I sat down and read Sam Kieth's new hardcover Arkham Asylum Madness from cover to cover. Sam's style isn't for everyone, and has evolved over the years quite a bit, but I'm a fan of both his art and his writing. Madness actually seemed a little toned down in both regards.

Anybody who read his creator-owned series The Maxx from Image back in the 90's will tell you, the drugs you would need to be on to understand some of Sam's writing simply do not exist. In fact some of the fun I have reading his stuff is seeing if my feeble mind will be able to actually comprehend what I'm reading. With a name like "Madness" I expected to be completely lost. The fact that it was easy to read, and understand came as a pleasant surprise.

Madness almost reads like two different books. It follows the events of a day in Arkham Asylum for a new nurse named Sabine, who narrates most of the first half. She's on day shift, she relies on two or three other nurses/employees to get her through her day, she's a new mommy who seems to have an almost obsessive relationship with her son Ozzy (which I found weird and I just knew Sam was going to throw a curveball at the end with this but didn't), and in a nutshell she hates her job but needs it for her family.

One thing leads to another and Sabine is forced to work a double shift because the Asylum is understaffed. All throughout the day shift, Sabine is constantly assured that things could be worse, "at least you're not on the night shift". Makes sense, as I'm sure Arkham Asylum would be a totally different beast after dark. It's here that the book changes over, and the Joker becomes the focus/narrator. I hate to say it, but I felt like the book loses a little bit of steam here. While I enjoy the Joker's lunacy, I was actually pretty wrapped up in Sabine's story and would've liked to see Kieth continue with her, especially her impressions of working the Asylum after hours.



Thankfully the book picks back up before ending on a satisfying note (for me anyway). When the Joker took over, I was afraid Madness was going to become yet another seemingly insane, yet carefully planned out attempt to escape. In reality, Joker had no intention of trying to escape, instead it's about how much he hates the doctors, guards, and other employees at Arkham. Kind of a nice contrast between he and Sabine, I thought.

There are lots of memorable scenes in the book, I particularly enjoyed Sam's somewhat different takes on Harley Quinn and Scarecrow. Others were left pretty much as-is, Two-Face is Two-Face, Ivy is Ivy, etc. Almost all the Batman's regulars make an appearance, and surprisingly not a single panel for Bats himself.

Overall, I highly recommend giving Madness a read. I don't know if it's going to change anybody's opinion of Sam Kieth, be it his writing or his art, but if you're going to read Sam Kieth Batman this is as close to normal as you're going to get.

I. Am. Fucking. Crying.

Hadou-Mario!

Remember when I said that Tee Fury was awesome? Way more awesome than Shirt.Woot has been lately? They still are.



Might want to get used to this one kids, I don't think I'll be taking it off that often. It's that awesome.

DC Dynamics Batman Statue

Ok so after a LONG wait (though not as long as Gentle Giant made me wait for Master Chief), DC Direct finally shipped the DC Dynamics Batman statue I ordered way back in October of last year. Unfortunately I haven't unpacked my camera yet, and don't plan on doing so as I hope to be moving yet again very soon, but I took a few pics with my Blackberry so I could throw them up here in the Batcave.



Overall, I'm extremely happy with it. It looks like a bit of a mixture between the comic book and movie versions of Batman, with the cowl being from the latter. The detail is nice, although I think a better job could've been done on the paint job on his face and eyes.



He sports a bit of a hefty price tag, and honestly I can't really recommend paying the full $200 for him, but if you can get him cheaper definitely go for it. I didn't pay anywhere near retail for mine of course, again a perk of working at a comic store....



The DC Universe Villains Joker bust and Frank Quitely Batman Black and White statue from the link above also came in, so I should be back fairly soon with even more "Wonderful Toys" posts for your viewing pleasure. Until then...

Best part about having friends who really get me?

I get text messages like this....

Random Screen Grab

Zombie Shamoo....

...isn't impressed with Aquaman at all.

MORTAL KOMBAT!!!!

Been out of commission for a couple days due to a virus, but thanks to my elite team of IT ninjas, all is to the good. Wanted to drop by and post this in case any of you were dead this week and didn't see it....Mortal Kombat trailer done by people who might actually KNOW how to make a good MK movie! If only it would happen....

Infinite Playlist - Special "This one Goes out To" Edition!

Due to the overwhelming popularity (what? 1 comment is 100% more than I normally get) of my last Infinite Playlist selection in which I mentioned that the song held some relevance to current events in my personal life, I thought I'd go ahead and give a couple more "shout-outs" so to speak. Not calling any names, and it's not like the folks these go out to stop by here anyway. But hey if you think one might apply to you, I think Monoxide said it best, if the shoe fits then wear that bitch!

Movie Night

Kids are out of town this weekend, so I'm REALLY flying solo today, don't much feel up to going anywhere or doing anything, so looks like movie night it is. As mentioned in yesterday's post, I saw Splice last night, and loved it. As such I'm thinking it's time to revisit a couple of the reasons why Guillermo del Toro is such a genius.

Pan's Labryinth - You know when somebody refers to a particular movie as "magical"? That's what this movie is for me. There's so much about it I love from the storybook-like script, to the wonderful creatures and effects, to the overall feel of creepiness lurking just underneath everything that's happening. Guillermo is a master story teller, and it really shows here. Particularly love the scene with the Pale Man, and anytime Fawn is on screen.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army - My love affair with Big Red is no secret, I proudly profess it as often as possible. I loved the first Hellboy movie, and I loved this one. I go back and forth constantly about which I think is the better of the two. On the one hand, Hellboy had evil nazis, the frogs, and en enormous creature with tentacles, so it looks like a no-brainer, but pump the brakes for a second, The Golden Army has even MORE creatures, a better storyline, AND Johann Kraus. I give up.

Of course there's always Blade II, The Devil's Backbone, and The Orphanage if I get through with these two and still want more. I think I might even have a copy of Mimic around here somewhere, and I haven't seen that movie in years, should probably give it another watch too. In case you didn't pick up on the extremely obvious, the theme for tonight is Guillermo del Toro, and possibly "movies with creatures who don't have eyes where there should be eyes, and have eyes where there shouldn't be eyes", but that's a little long.

Splice

Tonight I braved the wild, mean streets of LaGrange, GA to give my hard earned monies in promotion of Splice. Always one to promote the horror in theaters, this guy is. I was both extremely pleased, and disappointed all at the same time.

First the extremely pleased part, the movie. Wow, just wow....how many disturbing themes and situations take place in this 100 minute movie? I lost count. This is NOT your typical creature feature, and is all the better for it. I don't want to go into too much detail here, as I'd hate to spoil this one for anybody. My one minor gripe, and you know I always have at least one, was Sarah Polley. Guys I just don't like her. I've only seen her in a few things and she's bugged me in all of them. The script overall was decent, though as usual these "scientists" did some incredibly stupid shit, but it's a movie so that's to be expected. The rest of the cast performed well, especially Delphine Chaneac as Dren. Can't say enough good things about her.

And now for the disappointment. This was a heavily promoted Warner Bros. movie and I sat in a theater on opening night at 8pm with around 15 other people. Not even the usual Friday night teenage crowd was present. I kinda get why straight up horror doesn't play well unless it's October, it bothers me of course, but I get it. But generally when you slap "sci-fi" in front of horror, it does a little better. I don't know how it's playing everywhere else, but LaGrange wasn't feeling it tonight. It's going to be interesting to see the weekend numbers Monday morning, but I have a feeling my disappointment won't be any less. Fucking movie-goers man, unless it's some generic stupid bullshit with some actor they recognize as "that guy from that movie" they liked, then it isn't worth their time. I have no doubt that "Get him to the Greek" will open much bigger than Splice and that makes me weep for humanity.

If you have any interest at all, please go see Splice. It's more than worth your time and money. It may not be exactly what you're expecting, but I assure you there won't be much else the theater this year that will make you feel as uneasy at times as this movie will. It's funny where it's supposed to be, and oh my God is it unsettling where it's supposed to be.

Ch-Ch-Ch-....HA-HA-HA

My NECA Friday the 13th replica Jason mask arrived in record time! I'm extremely impressed with it, as I knew I would be as NECA does not fuck around when it comes to quality. There's a TON of detail on this thing that you won't be able to see in the picture, but trust me it's there, down to every single scratch. This thing is beautiful, and as you can see is fun for both kids and adults!

I'm thinking I may still get a little better one around Halloween this year, but for $20 this one will do nicely until then, and will look good displayed in the Batcave after I buy a costume mask.

Mid-Week Motivation

Wednesday, ya hate it right? Aside from new comics, is there ANYTHING at all that Wednesdays are good for? It's too late to start the week off right, and it's too soon to be considered "almost the weekend", as far as I can tell there really isn't a use for Wednesday at all, except new comics.

I'm here to help though, to give you a reason to crawl out of bed during the middle of the week, I care, I'm a giver, and as such I give you Mid-Week Motivation courtesy of the Batcave. You're welcome.