If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Over at Flickr, Ape Lad has issued a challenge, Re-Ink Jack Kirby’s Mighty Thor pencil’s better than Vince Colletta. Page 144 of Lee/Kirby’s Might Thor has been posted and it up to you to re-ink the page yourself then upload your work to the Flickr pool. You can do the whole page or just a panel, its up to you. Since my artistic talent ends at stick figures and coloring books, I’m just going to enjoy everyone else’s submissions.

Like everyone else, I went to see Spider-Man 3 this weekend. Any regular readers of my blog know I’m a big comic fan and have really gotten back into comics in the last 6 month. I loved Spider-Man 1 and even more so Spider-Man 2. This was also the first Spider-man I’ve seen in the theater.

I’ll get right to it and say I’m not sure if I liked it. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it either. The two things that ruined it for me were the campy parts and Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane. This felt like more of Sam Raimi doing a Spider-Man movie than a Spider-Man movie directed by Sam Raimi. Anyone who has seen a Sam Raimi movie knows what I’m talking about.

The Good
I loved the Sandman in this. Thomas Haden Church did a brilliant job as the Sandman. He did a great job of bringing emotion to the character. The CGI effects that brought the Sandman to life were mind blowing. These were some of the best effects I’ve ever seen in a movie before.

Eric Forman as Venom?! That was my first reaction but I got to give it to him, he nailed it. I loved Topher Grace as Eddie Brock, tho it was weird hearing him speak as Venom.

Bruce Campbell. Nuff’ Said.

I loved Gwen Stacy in this movie. I one of those people that think Peter Parker would be better off in a world with Gwen Stacy than Mary Jane. My feelings are just amplified in Spider-Man 3. They should have killed off Mary Jane in the beginning and had Peter hook up with Gwen. Much better movie by 10 fold if that happened for me.

The Bad
I hated Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane in this. Didn’t care for her in the first one, was much better in the 2nd and I downright want her dead in 3. I could not see why they would be together in this movie. She cheats on him, she lies to him, doesn’t trust him, is jealous of him. Why they were in a relationship at all is a mystery. The Gwen Stacy scenes were so must better and would have loved to see a lot more Gwen and a hell of a lot less Mary Jane. I really hope shes off the next movie.

This movie is really weird in its comedic aspect. It was a lot of cheese and not a lot of wit. Spider-Man is all about the witty, smart-ass one liners and those are devoid in the movie. Instead we get a campy look at Spider-Man via Sam Raimi. Its one redeeming quality is that the campiness is felt throughout the movie and doesn’t veer from the path. I have to say Spider-Man 3 is what it is. For me in a movie with the emotional look at the Sandman and a terrifying look at revenge and hatred in Venom, the campy backdrop just feels out of place.

Unfortunately it seems that Marvel falls apart at number 3 with their franchises. First with X-Men 3 and now with Spider-Man 3. I don’t think either are bad movies, just missed potential. I think Spider-Man just fell into doing a lot of things OK instead of doing one thing good.

Wednesday is my favorite day of the week. I wake up, have some breakfast and wait patiently until 2pm when my Local Comic Shop opens so I can go and pick up this weeks comic books. I recently got back into comics after about 15 years thanks to podcasts like iFanboy and Geekscape but the real unsung hero is my Apple Macbook. Without programs like ComicBookLover, Wednesday’s List and iComicsOnSale, I wouldn’t have really gotten back into reading comics.

ComicBookLover

ComicBookLover aims to be the iTunes for digital comics and it comes pretty close. Its laid out in a similar fashion to iTunes with a 3 pane browser on the top, your library on the bottom and your lists on the left. You can also view by cover art. CBL allows you to organize your entire collection by tagging the file with all the relevant information such as issue name, volume, publisher and year. Just like iTunes, it support Smart Lists. This allows you to make a List based on search criteria which I have found invaluable.

Viewing comics has an impressive feature set such as Single, Western or Manga view. You can rotate images on the screen 90 degrees and it supports dual monitors. What I like to do is rotate the screen and turn my Macbook on its side like a book to read. The 13′ widescreen is almost the perfect size of a comic page. Pages are automatic sized based on which view your using and it provides an On-screen display to navigator when using Full Screen mode.

ComicBookLover will set you back $24.95 but if you read digital comics in any form, its well worth it.

Wednesday’s List

Railhead Design’s Wednesday’s List is a one trick pony. It pulls this weeks Diamond shipping list and allows you to print out your Pull List. The interface divides up each publisher in its own section and lists the name, Previews order number and price. Just check the box next to the comics you want and your ready to save, print or email your list. You can even sync with iCal. My favorite part is you can add in your local tax rate and it gives you a running tally for the comics you selected. I also print and bring my list with me so I know what I’m getting and what its going to cost me.

Wednesday’s List costs $7 and is a Universal Binary.

iComicsOnSale

iComicsOnSale or iCOS is a Dashboard widget. iCOS is similar to Wednesday’s List in that it allows you to print out weekly pull lists. I prefer iCOS because you can view a summary of each comic, cover, price, pages and writer/artist information. They even have a featured comic page highlighting one comic each week. That being said, I don’t use iCOS for two reasons. One its a widget and would work so much better an actually program and two its very unstable for me. It uses an insane amount of memory some times and it eats my pull list. The latest version is still beta so its to be expected but I’ve moved to Wednesday’ List for my Pull Lists because of this.

iComicsOnSale is free and they have just launched a new website which lists this weeks new comics with full descriptions.

iFanboy Podcast

While iFanboy is not an application it is a weekly podcast and video podcast that I can’t live without. And technically I subscribe to both podcasts using iTunes but thats nether here nor there. iFanboy do a audio podcast called the Pick of the Week where they pick one comic for that week and discuss it along with other books that were released. It comes out every Sunday and I listen to it on my way to pick up my comics every Wednesday. Then when I get home, there video podcast is waiting for me. The video podcast differs from the audio as they focus on topics and not weekly books.

So definitely check there podcast out. I look forward to it each week and its always the first I listen to and watch.

They killed Captain America! You Bastards!

New publisher Xider plans on releasing a DS game bases on Jeff Smiths epic Bone comic this year. Right now the title will be released in Europe with no word on a US release.

During a podcast this week, legendary comics creator Neal Adams announced that he and Frank Miller are both working together on a new Batman mini-series titled Batman: Odyssey. This is awesome news but I’m still alittle wary with Frank Miller. After Dark Knight Returns, Miller has been a little, umm, less than award winning with his Batman stories.

cough*dark knight strikes back*cough*all-star batman*cough.

Regardless I’ll be buying it when the 6 to 8 part series comes out. No word on when it should start but I would imagine sometimes in the next few months.