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Remember Comic Collector Live! from back in November? Yup the same one that was suppose to be released in December. Well, its still not released but in the past few weeks some interesting things have started to happen. First off Joe Butler, CEO of Comic Collector Live!, has posted a screenshot of the application. And that brings us to number 2, their forums are live.

Today I got an email that I will be included in the next batch of beta testers. This should be next week on February 15th. During the signup, I was asked if I would be willing to sign an NDA but according to the email, I will be able to post of the public forums about the software. There will also be another beta signup on the weekend of February 16th so keep an eye on the forums.

I just received my new issue of Wizard today and while thumbing through it, page 4 caught my eye.

Wizard #185 - Page 4-5. Notice anything familiar? Maybe a certain page photo?

Its probably just a coincidence…but maybe not?

Back in the early 90’s I was big into comics like most kids my age. But as I got older and entered high school and all the gimmicks started with Marvel, I pretty much walked away.

And thats how it stayed until about 2002 when I found out Kevin Smith was writing comics such as Green Arrow and Daredevil. This made me start looking at comics again and started getting weekly issues. At this time, I still owned my own business and really didn’t have time to go back and catch up on story lines and actually read weekly comics. But I still kept a pull list for about 3 years. The comics started to add up week after week and I never got around to reading any really. I did a small run of Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spider-man and tried to pick up X-treme X-men but that was really it. In 2005, I finally canceled my box at my local comic store as I was planning on moving in the next few weeks and was tying up loose ends.

2006 came and I was starting to get back into podcasts thanks to diggnation and Revision3. I happen to catch the Kevin Smith interview on Geekdrome but didn’t really start watching Geekdrome until about episode 39 and feel in love with it. This started me back on a comics somewhat but not until Geekscape and iFanboy recently started did I actually start reading comics.

My “in” was Marvel Civil War. Comics are a little hard to just jump right in but Civil War was a crossover throughout the entire Marvel Universe. I could start at the beginning of a story arc that covered a lot of books so it was a good starting point no matter which title I wanted to read. I spend the last few weeks reading Civil War from the start and all the tie-in books. This was about 80 books altogether and I finally finished last night. Since I was caught up mostly, I started going back a few episodes of iFanboy and posting on there forum. From this I started making notes of what other books are good and I should check out.

Right after watching the first vidcast of iFanboy, I went and ordered Watchmen: Absolute Edition and 300 from Amazon. A few days later I was looking at the Comic Book Finder and found a comic shop in my area called Legends of Superheroes. I tossed the address in my GPS and off I went. I liked the store and they seemed to have a good selection of Trades which my old shop didn’t. I talked to the owner some and I was pretty much hooked again. I picked up The Dark Knight Returns and the first two volumes of The Preacher TPB. As a comic book fan, its embarrassing to admit I have never read any of these but hey, you got to start somewhere.

This Wednesday I went down to Legends, picked up this weeks comics I wanted and started a box. So I’m officially back and can’t wait for next Wednesday!

Gearing up here for the holidays. Tomorrow is my last day off before Christmas and I plan on getting all my shopping done. Other than that, I’ve been on a major media rush for the past month.

I’ve started watching alot of TV shows. Finally started watching Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars, and Grey’s Anatomy. All which are better than the hype and I suggest you check them out in case your haven’t yet.

Recently subscribed to Netflix and been loving it. There HD-DVD selection is about as good as it gets and Blockbuster is giving away free rentals in exchange for the Netflix flaps you usually toss out. So its safe to say I’ve been getting my movie on lately too.

In addition to Netflix, I signed up for Gamefly too tho my experience has been no where as good as with Netflix. I’m currently playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance and its really fun so far. A must get for any Marvel Comics fan.

Speaking of Marvel, thanks to Geekdrome, god rest its soul, I’ve gotten back into reading comics. I’ve been stockpiling them for almost 2 years but could never find a good “in” to start. Enter Civil War, it seemed like the perfect story arc to jump back in. Major story arc and most major comic titles are involved, the perfect time start. I got alot of catching up to do before I’m current but its been a great story so far. I’m also reading all the titles involved so it will be a couple weeks until I’m caught up. I started with Road to Civil War and I’m about 30 issues in with about 35 left.

Hope everyone has a Happy Holiday.

Comic Collector Live caught my eye today. Right now its just vaporware but it looks to be a kinda barterbee.com for comic books. Details are alittle light right now but from what I can tell its going to have desktop software that will catalog your comic library and actually asset its value. From there you will be able to buy and sell comics with other users. If this somehow becomes the Delicious Library of Comics I will be in my glory. I have 4 boxes of comics here that I’ve been trying for the past year to go through and sell what I don’t want and buy what I need to finish runs. This looks to be a killer app for me if its done right.

Now this is pretty cool (read geeky). James Kakalios is a Physics professor at the University of Minnesota and teaches a class called “Everything I Know About Science I Learned from Reading Comic Books”. Where was this guy when I was taking Physics? He has published a book called The Physics of Superheroes and gives speeches to Sci-Fi and Comic conventions.

Here is a clip from a recent convention talking about one of my favorite comic book characters Gwen Stacy and the physics behind her death.

iCOS, IComicsOnSale, released version 1.3 beta of there widget that show which comics are shipping during the week. New features include:

� Current Week/Expected Next Week
� Item Details
� Pull List
� Archives of Previous Weeks
� Add Company/Imprint filters
� Keyboard commands

This is a great full featured widget which supports features like Smart lists, Pull lists and check previous weeks.

[Download here]