I used to be a lot more active on the site. Not so much on the forums, but at one time I was the number one user reviewer. Unfortunately, my marriage began to fall apart, and my narcissistic thinking that anyone here was interested in my opinions on Ambush Bugs Stocking Stuffer kind of took a back seat. Well, one year later, The ex wife and I have settled enough to be friendly for our children. Also I began to talk to a lovely woman who owns a farm in Thailand. I lost my job right after I lost my family, so this year has been starting a new chapter from scratch. Since no one has given me a job, I have decided to start a business. Still priced out of new books however, but there are thousands upon thousands of comics that have come out, to put my opinion to. So thank you to all the recommendations and followers since I was last here. It's about damn time i reached the 1,000 review mark.
I know this is not about our hobby. I just have to get it off my chest
the month of march began with the death of my ( step) Father In Law. Unfortunately that title kind of downplays the role he had in my family. More than my wifes real dad ... he was a grandfather to my children. To me he was a friend. we shared disney pin trading, and our love for old westerns and zorro. Many times we annoyed my wife and her mother just because they heard the words " out of the night when the full moon was bright".
I was the one who had to tell my children on the day he died. I was over at my house Gail ( my wife ) was with her mother at her home ( or the home she shared with Rodney) while I was with them, I get a phone call from my wife. They are scared. Rodneys children broke into the home. scared them off, and began to rob the place. We contacted them in the morning. When my wife heard of his death. She left her job as soon as she hung up.
it was 9:30am. We waited for Rodneys kids until 12:30. they didn't show up to the hospital until 5:30. We figured they only decided to stay long enough to sign papers and leave. From there they went to steal from my mother in law. By the time I arrived, my wife and mother in law had left because they thought the sisters would have harmed them. Or gotten their husbands to do so.
I arrived to see them carrying boxes to a van. I told them to stop, they had no right to remove property from the house. They threatened to call the police on me, and I called them instead. I also called my family. If the law did not get there in time, they would feel a little hillbilly justice. They told the police they were only looking for the Will. The police decided to treat it like a domestic dispute instead of burglary. Even when we showed them a bag full of money that was removed from the house.
This is a reoccuring theme, as the youngest daughter spends the rest of the month coming into the house when no one is home and stealing things. One time she even stole a 20 inch flat screen. Because there was a will ( not in probate ) the cops would not arrest her.
Thankfully, we got my mother in law out of the house. They terrorized her enough over the years. One time. Actually the first time I met them the youngest daughter was hitting Rodney as the other kept my Mother In Law at bay. It was only Rodney asking me not to do anything that kept me from beating them and one of their husband to death on the spot.
The worst insult was the funeral, where we saw the last 17 years of Rodneys life omitted, and my Mother in Law never spoken of. Instead, we saw a travesty that was more about the two daughters than about the man himself. My Mother in Law, who spent the last 18 years as his girlfriend/fiance, and the last seventeen in the same house, was forced to sit in the back.
Karma has a way
Recently, we had some bad storms here in Orlando Florida. When we passed by Rodneys place, where one of the kids were now living after they chased my Mother In Law out. There was a tree that had fallen into the ceiling. I have to admit, I did smile.
Until I came across those women, I had never known true evil.
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I am enjoying reading my back issues, and I am way behind in my reviews by comparison. Reading Power Pack again made me think of what it was like as a kid reading these stories.
Please I invite any opinion on the list, but I am more interested in my fellow comicviners thoughts on the subject.
A few personal opinions and observations about the things around me
1. I live in Florida where our seasons are broken down into Lovebug cockroach mosquito and Hurricane
2. I hate CGC graded books, since they came along the smallest crease makes a book worthless, and they put them into a hard candy shell that removes their sole function.
3. I am not a Republican, I am a Libertarian.
4. Working at the theme parks might not pay a lot, but it can be satisfying on the best days
5. I never had a best days when trying to perform for the Brazillian tour groups
6. If you swim to the bottom of a lake, you really can get away from the world.
7. The downside to swimming to the bottom of a lake is you get away from oxygen
8. Since we have this whole ammendment in the Constitution stating that all citizens are the same in the eyes of the law, then no court should be able to deny the civil union of anyone.
9. Yet no church should be forced to engage in a ceremony that goes against their religion
10. Batman isn't only as good as his villains. He is as good as the writer can make him
11. Same goes for all comics.
12. My life was threatened by hippies when I was still in the womb,
13. My life was threatened by my inability to digest and properly process water when I was four.
14. So far I have been living 36 years on borrowed time.
15. Abortions should not be outlawed because no medical procedure should be taken off the shelf if it might save a life.
16. Our third child would have been born with its brain on the outside. It was the hardest decision we ever had to make. My wife still cries 10 years later. Never argue the pro stance without thinking of the consequences.
17. I will be voting everyone out this coming election.
18. Resident Evil was my favorite Game franchise ... then I played #5 ... then I played Left for Dead 2 ... YAY for Left For Dead.
19. I now buy trades and comics with the thought of reviewing them here.
20. No ... seriously. How narcissistic is that? 741 reviews at the time i wrote this.
21. I like the Ultimate Marvels better than the other Marvels.
22. I once had a private chat with George Perez when he was at my comic shop. He was kind, he offered to autograph my copy of Infinite crisis # 1, and in the middle of our conversation I realized I am giving a personal interview to the Best comic artist out there.
23. I would like death to be permenant in comics.
24. Wally West was Flash as long as Barry Allen. Barry Allen was a better character dead, than alive.
25. Marvel comics ruled until the mid 80's
26. The triple threat of Watchmen Dark Knight and Sandman led DC to take over ever since.
27. Although DC really made a crap sandwhich with Zero Hour.
28. Any time I think of what me and my family have been through I think of Raoul Julias line in Kiss Of A Spider Woman, " All life has to offer is the struggle," oddly enough, that is a happy thought to me.
29. I have seen over 7,000 movies, not counting rewatches and straight to video films.
30. I have read more comics than that.
If you made it through that thank you. I almost erased this but my psychosis and obsession with myself would not let me.
Thank you very much to those Viners who are reviewing comics, and posting opinions. Unfortunately my on again off again unemployment has finally taken its toll on me and I finally had to give up collecting monthly issues. Heck I even had to ebay my Walking Dead collection to pay the rent. Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you. However, I am keeping up with the reviews and opinions here. Making sure I am at least in the loop. So once again Viners someone out there appreciates your work. Now back to the long Boxes, and Trade Paperbacks.
So I have finally watched Judd Apatows now classic, and far to short lived tv show "Freaks and Geeks" , Looking at it, it is easy to comment on all the things the professional critics compliment the show for. Good acting, excellent stories, but what really stood out for me was how the geeks were written. This is possibly the best representation of the group of kids I hung around with during my geek years, but I will digress with a bit of a background story.
I am thinking of a year or two before the high school aga that was shown in Freaks & Geeks, but I remember when I was in 8th grade, positively my geekiest years, me and my friends meeting in the cafeteria, each with our weekly comics in tow. We would spread them across the table and as we ate read and discussed whatever we brought. This was back when the X-men and Teen Titans were cool, and the Wolverine mini series was new on the shelves.
Sure after lunch some of us took some ribbing, and a couple of people asked questions, but for the most part, no one bothered us, and that is one of the things the show got right. "Eugene from Grease" he doesn't exist. However, a group of geeks who just were being themselves, and were surprised that they were not more popular because of it, does exist. Or at least it did in 1983.
There is a line in the breakfast club, where Claire says " but thats because you want to be like us," and Brian says " You are so concieted," That is another truth, and one I have experienced. I never wanted to be the jocks, or the stoners. In all honesty, it just did not look like they had a lot of fun. They had no Idea that Vstood for Vendetta, or who Buckaroo Banzai was. They had no idea how to rescue Princess Daphne, nor did they know the difference between an Orc and a Hobgoblin.
but they did know something I did not, how to get girls interested in what they were interested in. Now I know, you just have Hugh Jackman play Wolverine, and that will open the door to Geek chic. No, I never wanted to be them, I just wanted them to accept me for who I was, no comprimise. Thanks to also being a bit of a class clown, I was able to bring people around, slowly but surely if they didn't try Dungeons and Dragons, as James Francos character did in the series finale. Then at least they just accepted that " hey, that's Aaron. It's what he does.
It also helps that the big group of geeks, have been friends now for nearly 30 years. Only two of us still collect comics. Only 2 of us still play video games regularly, but we all will meet up for a superhero or fantasy movie. We don't talk about Wolverine so much, as what our kids and wives have done, but we are still geeks, we wear it on our sleeves, and as for the approval of others. Screw em, I am 40 years old and not interested in people who aren't interested.
If you haven't checked the show out, I can recommend it. It made me laugh, I was involved with the characters. Most of all I recognised someone I knew in everyone on screen. This is on the list of shows that died way too soon.
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So I found out my oldest daughter is now into men. Thanks to Chris Evans. We were watching the Fantastic Four Movie, and the scene where he first bursts into flames and ends up naked in the snowbank. My oldest ( 15 )daughter was sitting next to me at the time, and when it showed him in all his glory I hear a quiet " oh" come out of her. My head nearly exploded. My wife said, "well, at least we know you are heterosexual" to which my youngest ( 14 ) replied, "Well one of us should be," That was when the nearly exploded head burst. Though she could not hold a straight face over it, and I found that my youngest is a smart ass, just like me. My oldest however is on perminant restriction.
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I was going through the cheapie box at the comic shop, and it amazed me that you can find so many of the old Valient titles there. If anyone cares to remember the splash they were making before the Steam Engine called Image came into town and mowed them down. Not just them, but we were getting creator controlled lines of comics everywhere. Valiant in my opinion happened to be the best. Most of the titles I found to be intriguing to say the least. There were not too many straight up Superhero books. Most had some sort of Sci Fi feeling to them. One of th weird things about the line was that each title had a similar feel. It drew them to each other making one cohesive universe. Unfortunately, as I said before they were run over by Todd Mcfarlane and his band of Merry Men. To the point where the influence was palpable. On the dark side I remember Jim Shooters Defiant Comics taking a hold on both the Creator controlled, and the gimmick fads of the 90's. Remember how the first issues were done in trading card form. Oh wait, that is three fads of the 90's. A hat trick. If only the cards were chrome plated, or holographic. Then all of the ugliness of the 90's would be represented. Still, that could have been forgiven if you did not have to search pack after pack of cards to create one book. It is no wonder why the Defiant line of comics was dead in the water long before it even had a chance to breathe. As obviously bad as Defiant was on paper the Techno comics line seemed like a sure thing. Gene Roddenberry, Leonard Nemoy, and even Neil Gaiman threw their hats into this ring. If memory serves, only Leonard Nimoys Primortals showed any signs of life. It was a comic line of big ideas and small results. Although I did like Mr. Hero. I guess the only two lines that could run with image were The Dark Horse "Legends" Imprint, which wins hands down for having the best creators, giving us such work as Monkey Man and Obrian. Look it up, it is a good book. Also the Malibu created Ultraverse. Needing something to fill the gap left by Image comics growing large enough to move out on its own. I guess the Bravura comic line wasn't quite pulling its weight with only the Ferret making a splash. Any way, I have rambled on for awhile now. There are some good books to read in those I just mentioned. Except for Defiant. There really is no reason to drudge that crap up. Try : The Strangers, Prime, Nightman From The Ultraverse. Monkeyman And O'Brien, Big Guy And Rusty The Boy Robot, Babe From Legend Comics. Archer And Armstrong , Shadowman , X-O Man Of War From Valiant. These titles in my opinion represent some of the best of each Imprint.
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So I have had a sales job for some time now. Trouble is, I am no sales man.So for the longest time, I was picking up books here and there whenever I could scrape together enough to actually afford the ever increasing prices. Things fall into perspective when you read books like this. The stories become more disjointed as the series you would normally get on a monthly basis now become bi or even trimonthly.
This is also a good reason to be on good terms with your "Comic Book Guy". If they like you, they will tolerate holding a few more books than usual. In my case I am ( or was ) three months behind on reading. Almost a year behind with reviews. To put into perspective, I am behind so much I am just now getting to reviewing last Years Titans crossover "Deathtrap" I am enjoying my days off, where I am doing nothing but watching Netflix and enjoying a Washington Monument size ( that is the penis shaped one ) stack of overdue comics. That and an incredibly huge pile of Trade Paperbacks thanks to the Orlando Mega Con becoming a buyers market in its last few hours. I am happy to be back in the fold, even though, the months of being poor made me see enough flaws in some cloth to remove some titles from the pull list. So goodbye to Powergirl, you tried but were no She Hulk. Deadpool, well .... you just aren't all that funny anymore. Just sort of sad. Like Robin Williams in the 90's. Before he got the part in Good Will Hunting. The others are in tryouts right now, and my evil eye is trained on those that dare to cost me an extra dollar for three pages of a story about someone I do not care about. Except the Legion Of Superheroes.
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