Hip Hop Family Tree vol 2

Just a quick post here!


I just finished Hip Hop Family Tree vol. 2 by Ed Piskor and published by Fantagraphics.


This book covers the years of 1981to 1983, including such notable highs in hip-hop as The Furious Five's "The Message", Afrika Bambataa and Soul Sonic Force, and the break-out of Run-DMC. This made the book a little bit more approachable to me, as it discussed events and music I was already conscious of, but as the hip-hop world expands, the narrative was a little more spread out than the first books.


As with the previous book, this one is a delight. Many of the comics are available online at Boing Boing, but the over-sized graphic novel is a prize worth owning. If you haven't yet, you should check these out.

Movie: Wonder Woman

Just a quick post today. The wife and I watched the "Wonder Woman" animated feature on television last night. (Teletoon has been playing the DC animated movies on Sunday evenings as of late), and I wanted to drop a quick review.

It was good.

We both liked the movie, and I found that they did a good job of making Wonder Woman a character that was both approachable and tough, interesting and well-rounded. They then took this character and placed her in a plot that had good action, a few cool fights, and some humour to balance things out.

Wonder Woman is a character that is difficult to get right, (many have tried and failed) so I was interested in seeing how this movie would work. They stuck to canon as much as they could (though they did cut out Hippolyta's time with the Justice Society), and told a pretty good origin story for Diana. They also used Steve Trevor (WW's boyfriend from the golden age of comics) which was interesting, since no one knows about Steve Trevor, at least not in a Lois Lane/Mary Jane Watson kind of way.

Lastly, there was an odd amount of sexual humour and cheesecake in the movie. The wife and I both laughed at it, so it was actually funny, but I suppose the fact that it was there at all was strange and amusing.

In the end, the flick was fun action with a good grasp of the character. Watch it.

Marvel and Politics

Maybe you've heard about the SOPA and PIPA acts going through the US congress and senate. It is sort of a big deal, and it has the potential to really mess up the internet as we now know it. If you don't know anything about it, you should probably take a looks see. This document is a pretty good start.

There was a pretty big blackout of Wikipedia yesterday to highlight the issue. 24 hours without Wikipedia, and it did some good.

Internet writer and angry person Maddox was not thrilled with the effort. He wants people to do more, to really drive home the point.

This is a good thing. People should do more.

He lists a bunch of companies that publicly supported these terrible acts, and he suggests making them pay by refusing to support them. One name that popped for me, was of course Marvel.

I get why Marvel would be for laws that protect their copyright, but the problem I have is that they support this act; one that is flawed and vague and brutally open to kicking the little guy around.


It's kind of gross.

It also could be a poor business decision. Most fans don't really know that Marvel (amgonst other publishers) are pushing for these acts to pass into law, but they should. The fans should also know that they have the real power here. Marvel Publishing is a great target for a boycott, each issue selling, what, 100,000 issues at the best of times. A few thousand people can make a real dent in that revenue, if they were so inclined.


I do believe I am going to cancel my (not insignificant) pull list of Marvel comics today. I like me my open and crazy and free internet, and, at the very least, I can stop giving my money to some people who are inclined to fuck with that.

AVX: Stegman Variant - Cap Punches Cyke

Captain America is, inexplicably, one of my favorite characters. Cyclops is easily one of my least favorites. Captain America punching Cyclops on a cover makes me giggle like a little school girl. I feel like that bratty kid at the end of "The Karate Kid", and yelling "Do it, Cap! Yeeeeaaaah!"


The Marvel spiel:


Marvel Unveils AVENGERS VS. X-MEN #1 STEGMAN VARIANT!

This April, the biggest names in the industry pit the largest super hero franchises against one another for the biggest war in comics history in Avengers Vs. X-Men! To celebrate this blockbuster event, Marvel has your first look at the Avengers Vs. X-Men #1 Stegman Variant by red-hot artist Ryan Stegman! The Phoenix Force is headed towards Earth and Captain America is determined to prevent the destruction of the whole world by stopping it. But when word gets to the X-Men that the Phoenix is returning, Cyclops will do anything he can to save it…including going up against Earth’s Mightiest! But who is right? Will mutantkind be saved or will the world be annihilated? Don’t miss out on all the action in Avengers Vs. X-Men #1 in comic shops worldwide and on the Marvel Comics app this April!

Which team will reign supreme? Join the conversation on Twitter with #AvX!

For more on Avengers Vs. X-Men, please visit http://avx.marvel.com

AVENGERS VS. X-MEN #1 (JAN120625)
AVENGERS VS. X-MEN #1 STEGMAN VARIANT (JAN120626)
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS, JASON AARON, MATT FRACTION, JONATHAN HICKMAN, ED BRUBAKER
Art by JOHN ROMITA JR.
Cover by JIM CHEUNG
Variant Cover by RYAN STEGMAN
FOC – 2/27/12, ON SALE – 4/3/12

Movie: The Woman In Black

I don't often get excited for horror movies, and especially not lately, but I caught the trailer for "The Woman in Black" on television the other day, and it looked pretty damned awesome.

This is the trailer:



I'm not a fan of the "torture porn" horror that has dominated the last decade or so. I like tha Saw movies, but stuff like Hostel just leaves me cold. This flick looks full on creepy with a few bits of action and jumps.

Then, I saw this faux-vintage poster:
It only serves to make me more excited for this film. Dan Radcliffe seems like a good call for this part, and turn of the 20th century settings just add to the awesomeness. I am looking forward to this one, which is coming out on February the 3rd.

Back, Plus TMNT

I miss writing about comic books. 5 months was too long to be away.

So I'm back.

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Five issues in, IDW's run with the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is, in my opinion, a hit.



Co-creater Kevin Eastman is on board, lend the book some of the cred it needs, as an 80's-90's property trying to make it in the comic shops. But more importantly, the book is good. Plain as that. The art by Dan Duncan is good. It's a bit sketchy, and bit on the dark side, but for a property that has its roots in the indy comic scene, it is totally appropriate.

Kevin Eastman is guiding Tom Waltz in creating a new origin for the Turtles, and they are blending a nice mix of tradition with modern sensibilities. The essentials are all there, of course; four turtles and a rat, mutagenic ooze, evil scientists, an ancient clan of ninja and a street kid with a hockey mask looking to get his licks in on the criminals in his neighborhood. Yet, the changes they've made help work the story into comfortable areas. For example, Raphael is separated from the turtles shortly after getting hit with the ooze, and mutates alone and on his own. They find him soon enough, but this little twist in the history help set up Raph as the outsider of the four. It works, and that's why I like the changes they've introduced.

Five issues in, and I'm digging just about everything about this book. It's worth a read.

4 Years

Hello friends,

After more than four years of blogging, I am putting "Underpants on the Outside" on indefinite hiatus.

It's been a blast. Really. This site has been through a lot, and I loved writing here. It's a little weird to see it stop, I must say. A little weird, and a little sad.

But!

But fret not. The reason I'm putting things around here on hold is because I'm moving over to a new, snazzy, website: "9to5".

I'm part of the founding crew, so you can be sure to see more of my comic book and movie posts, as always, along with a whole mess of other great stuff. Comic strips, pop culture, videos and podcasts. Bookmark it. Make it your home page. Visit every hour!

I'll see you there!

First Look at Cavill as Supermann

Courtosy of CBR, here's the first shot of Henry Cavill as the Man of Steel.


Not too shabby.

Judge Dredd

FirstShowing.net has a bunch of photos up from the upcoming "Judge Dredd" movie, starring Karl Urban.

"I Yam Duh Luh!" indeed.

It's slated for release later this year.


I'm okay with more post-apocalyptic fare at the cinema, and Urban hasn't been bad in anything I've seen, so, I'm for it.

Old is New

Avengers #221:

New Avengers #28
So close. If only Iron Fist was on that old cover. It's all about the call backs, people.

TinTin: The Secret of the Unicorn

Comics Alliance has a nice little article up about the upcoming movie, as well as a flashy new trailer.

Looks fun.

Shortpacked Delivers again

On the topic of overworked designs in costumes:

Whenever Shortpacked touches on Batman, it's always gold

Game of Thrones Comic

The Wonderful folks at Comics Alliance have posted some promo art for the freshly announced Game of Thrones comic from Dynamite Comics.

Sexy Alex Ross covers. Winter is coming.

DC Reboot: Batman and Kevin Smith

My least favourite Batman comic and my least favourite Kevin Smith work will remain in continuity in the DC Universe following the DC reboot.

Why? I cannot explain. It makes me sad, actually.

Thanks to Keith for bringing me this heartbreaking news.

Movie: X-Men: First Class

Risa and I went to see "X-Men: First Class" last night. Cheapie Tuesday movies, for the win.

The quick review; it was very good. As good as X2 in my opinion, and Risa liked it even better than that.

Spoilers may follow from this point on, so be warned, all ye who enter.

First off, director Matthew Vaughn has yet to direct a movie I don't like. His first three flicks were "Layer Cake" (which essentially got Daniel Craig the role as James Bond), "Stardust" and "Kick Ass". Are you asking how to make action movies that have strong characters and compelling drama? Talk to Matt Vaughn (I'm looking at you Michael Bay and Gavin Hood). The movie looks great, and is set in 1962 without it constantly beating you over the head with "Hey, it's 1962, folks! Look at those wacky 60's!" (The one part where that does happen is when Charles tells a woman her eyes are "groovy" while trying to pick her up in a bar, but it works.) The action scenes are bombastic, and are (thankfully) not riddled with "shakey-cam" so the viewer can actually appreciate what's going on.

The casting was pretty great for this movie. I was pleasantly surprised at this because I was not all that enthused as the casting was announced during pre-production. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender did great work as Charles Xavier and Magneto, and I both believed their friendship and their routes to different paths. Nicholas Hoult was Hank McCoy, and he looked picture perfect as a young and non-furry Beast, and really, I have no complaints about the rest of the team. They looked the part, and played it well enough for me. I did find it odd that they added Havok to the team, as he is supposed to be Cyclops' younger brother, and making him a teen in 1962 would but him well in his 60's now, but that's neither here nor there, and is mostly the fanboy in me being nitpicky. Mystique was also well played, and handled the development of being a self-loathing mutant with much more delicacy than the way it had previously been done with Rogue in the first trilogy.

Moving on.

The villains are headed up by Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw, who does play a menacing and evil character quite well. The rest of the Hellfire Club have the look, but don't add much more than their powers to the movie. Even January Jones, who I found took a choice role in Emma Frost and made her bland and a one-note character, losing her clever and catty dialogue and leaving behind only a hot body in revealing clothing. That's really a shame, but it doesn't take too much away from the overall experience. Azazel and Riptide also both looks cool, and get in on the action scenes, but don't really drive the movie forward. One thing Azazel does do, however, is show how bad-ass a demonic-looking teleporter assaulting a government institution could be. Oh wait...

If you don't know where Azazel comes from, his moronic origins were quite nicely explained over at Robot 6 last week. He's better in the movie than in the comics, it should be stated.

Look for a few great cameos/easter eggs during the film. They deliver. Also, the closing credits Saul Bass-esque design was wonderful. But there is nothing after the credits, so you don't have to sit there until the end. And lastly, this film was decidedly missing a Stan Lee cameo. *tsk*

To summarize, the movie is well written, well directed, and well acted. It was worth seeing, and is one of the better super hero movies made thus far. It exceeded my expectations, and I say, go see it.

Skottie Young's Daily Warm-Ups

Skottie Young is one of my favorite artists. I bought a whole run of Cable and Deadpool just because he was doing the covers. Over on his blog, he regularly posts a selection of his daily warm up sketches, and they're pretty damned cool.

Here are a couple of my favourites:


So cool.

Movie: Conan The Barbarian Trailer

Grabbed this from Superhero Hype. I wasn't super sure about this, but seeing "A Game of Thrones" on HBO has helped win me over to Jason Momoa's side, and I think he can play a great barbarian warrior.

The Conan movie is slated for an August 19th release.

Kids are Weird

I was in a restaurant a few weeks ago with my honey. It was past 10pm.

Two kids walked into the place. They were about 10 years old. They walked in the door, through the isle to the back of the place, and then back to the front door, leaving the place. The staff and clients were all left in awe, and it was obvious that no one knew what had just happened.

The kids were in costume, for no discernible reason.

One was dressed as Superman wearing a bunny mask and ears.

The other was dressed as Darth Vader Spider-man. Spider-suit, but with a full Vader helmet and chest piece. The chest-plate was making the heavy breathing sound effect.

These were the coolest kids ever.

What Is Best in Life? X-Men Arcade Game

Comics Alliance delivers this news to me today:

The 1992 X-Men Arcade game will be available for android devices.

"The arcade game's been available on gaming consoles for the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade since the end of 2010, but the mobile version should be handy for those who game on the move. Android and iOS features include drop-in multiplayer via Wi-Fi for up to four mutants (all six of the original characters: Cyclops, Colossus, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler and Dazzler), plus custom button placement on your device of choice's touch screen. Lefty's rejoice!"


Just as I'm about to begin shopping for a new phone, too.

Top Cow: First Look - Part 1

I picked up "Top Cow: First Look" last week, based on it's cover alone. The art didn't do much for me, but a 4.99 price tag was enough to entice me to give it a whirl. Actually, the rest of the cover design does leave something to be desired. It looks pretty lazily done, especially considering the goal of this book would be to entice new readers and sell them on what a great job Top Cow is doing.

The quick review: Top Cow is sort of doing okay, but not always.

I'll talk about the first three issues in the collection today, and save the next three for later.

First up is "Genius". Described by Top Cow:

"The Pilot Season 2008 winning team of Marc Bernardin & Adam Freeman (The Authority) and Afua Richardson (Cyblade) returns with Genius-a story of a young African-American military genius taking over LA's gangs."

It sounds liek a silly concept, but it was a fun read with bits of cleverness peppered throughout (even if some of those clever bits illustrated how to be a better domestic terrorist). The concept is basically a young woman, raised in South Central Los Angeles, has risen to take over and unify the gangs in her city, and declares war on the oppressors of her people, the LAPD.

Bernardin and Freeman obviously take a lot of their influences from "Boyz n the Hood" and N.W.A., and the dialogue feels like it's trying to be authentic, without it actually being authentic. The plotting is solid, however, and the Origin tale of a modern day Sun Tzu is compelling.

Richardson's art is pop-y and looks good on the page, but sometimes he makes strange decisions and the storytelling breaks down. Odd halos around characters, silhouettes, and confusing camera angles made me, at times, have to go back and reread the page to try and figure out what was going on.

"Genius" was a fun, but sometimes sloppy, read.

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Next up is "Sunset", tagged by the publisher as:
"Sunset by Christos Gage (Avengers Academy) and Jorge Lucas (The Darkness) tells the tale of an old Vegas enforcer on a quest for revenge in his twilight years."

I know Christos Gage from his work on IDW's GI Joe books, and I quite like the slow burn drama he's able to build. This one starts off very similarly to Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino", but there's a good twist at the end that stops it from being a heartwarming tale of the redemption of a cranky old man.

I hadn't really run across Jorge Lucas prior to this, but his art is serviceable, with similarities to Alex Maleev. I think he uses a bit too much digital processing, and it could benefit from a little more economy of the lines.

The set up was good, and I'm interested to see where Gage is taking the character, so this one was a pretty good preview. The benign beginning of the story is contrasted by the shock of the "ol' uber-violence" that jumps in at the end.

Comic Book Resources has an archived preview of the book here, if you wanna check it out.

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Lastly, for today, is Mysterious Ways, which Top Cow describes thusly:

"Jason Rubin (The Iron Saint) and Tyler Kirkham (Green Lantern Corps) unveil the supernatural murder-mystery Mysterious Ways."

It's hard sometimes, I find, to review comics. This is usually true when I find a comic that I really do not like, and such is the case with "Mysterious Ways".

Right off the bat, Kirkham's art rubs me the wrong way, as it gave me a 1992 "Extreme Studios"/ Rob Liefeld vibe. Too many lines, too sketchy, and... an interesting take on the study of anatomy.

Once the art leaves me cold, it's very hard for a writer to bring me back into the fold, and in this case, Jason Rubin was not up to the task. The story, about an ex-con/former cop turned alcoholic who is possibly framed for a grisly murder is seemed in "Spawn"-like melodrama and lacks any real emotional content. The min character spends nearly the entire book drunk and that prevents the reader from ever getting a chance to relate to or engage him, and the mystery just sort of falls flat because there's no one to care about.

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That's it for now. I'll review the other 3 issues in the book sometime later.