Archive | Comic Books RSS feed for this section

Comic Book Trading Cards. Oh How I Miss You.

4 Apr

Back in the 90’s Marvel, DC and every other comic book company pumped out some awesome trading cards. Since I was hooked onto Marvel like a fat kid on a lolli we’re going to focus on Marvel’s cards. Now let’s look back for a moment and try to grasp onto our youth for a few moments more.

From plain card stock to faux hologram:

Series 1:

These weren’t  all that bad as a start. They look very standard and sorta dull though. What do these guys do, who the hell are they, are they goodies are baddies? What makes them special other than their crazy outfits? The characters are just standing around looking bored or trying to attack me through the card. The designs are very 90’s as well. Look at the use of those lines and colors. I’m thinking the members on design team on these were really into Trapper Keepers. Not God awful, but they could do better. And they did…

Series II:

These seem a bit more trading card binder friendly. The lines still there though I see. Someone was really into those Trapper Keepers. One major change for the better was that the characters are mostly full figures and shown using their abilities somewhat. I am guessing the artists on these were given a bit more freedom this time around. The artists likely also realized if they did a good job some kid might ask him/her to sign it one day. Ah. What wouldn’t we do for praise and a paycheck.

Series III:

I couldn’t find any examples from this series online. Bite me.

Moving on…

Series IV:

What the what? This makes a magical puzzle of baddassery!! It even features the teams usual villian. What a great idea! If I collect the whole set I can make posters and have trading cards at the same time! But what if they were shiny silverish hologramy cards that some weird plastic film over them to make them super smooth…?

Well they eventually did that. But since It’s late and I’m tired and full of hamburgers you’re going to have to tune in next time to see those hologramish silverish cards…bitches. (Unless by any bizzar circumstance you have some kind of internet search engine and seek them out yourself. Like that’s going to happen. Ha ha…)

To be continued…

 

Want to know why there are so many DC references and so few Marvel ones on “The Big Bang Theory”? Find out here!

14 Sep

Warner Brothers owns the show and Warner Brothers owns DC Comics. Marvel Comics is the major competition of DC Comics. The end.

My Collection of Celebrity Autographs

8 Sep

Where have all the Nazis gone?

24 Aug

Chicago that’s where!

Mike and I were at Wizard World Chicago this past weekend. As per usual we had a great time and he was commissioned for many many sketches. Blank cover sketches, full figure sketches, head sketches and all that jazz. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then these two dudes stopped by the booth. They looked like they walked out of a beating scene from Boys Don’t Cry. Meaning they looked like scary dangerous rednecks. T-shirts with cut off sleeves, tattoos here there and everywhere and none were pretty colors, just black ink faded into dark blue. Anyway they were pretty odd looking amongst the nerd herd at the convention. They commissioned a sketch from Mike and as I took the details I noticed the older guy’s tattoos on his arm. Well lets just say he either likes the SS and the Nazi party or he got drunk and someone pulled a shitty prank on him back at the tattoo parlor one night. Either way he had a huge swastika and two or three “SS” symbols on him. My first thought was to act like a cold asshole to him from then on but try my best not to yell at him about his hateful tattoos. Then my next thought was to take all the money off him we could for the commission and use it for something good.

I sure as hell didn’t want to get jumped after the con so we didn’t ask him about his body “art” instead we chose to shut up and avoid a painful beating.

Long story slightly short: Mike did the commission and we accepted the cash. Later we had thought maybe the guy was a reformed Nazi or maybe he was a Buddhist but the guy fucked up the symbol at the tattoo parlor.

Either way we have the guys money and we plan to spend it on something he would hate to if her were a Nazi, like Mexican food or challah bread french toast. That’s not so bad, right?

The math of the TV show wardrobe:

11 Aug

Smart/lazy  producers decide that some shows should have their lead cast in recognizably similar clothing throughout the season. So that each character remains in your head to appear to remain the same throughout time. Their style and tastes never changing. The producers want you to recognize the character immediately and remember their style as well. Now here are a few examples of this interestingness:

A= Sheldon Cooper– Long sleeved solid shirt under a short sleeved printed shirt, unless he’s wearing a jacket over it of course. With dark straight leg pants, either pattered or solid.

B= Howard Wolowitz– Solid turtle neck under buttoned down collared shirt with maybe a sweater vest thrown in for shits and giggles. He has some dramatic colored pants. Like the red ones seen above.

C= Rajesh Koothrappali– Zip down wind breaker or light jacket over a v-neck sweater over a buttoned down collared shirt. He usually has earth tone pants.

D= Leonard Hofstadter– T-shirt under a hooded zip front sweat shirt (always unzipped), under a jacket. He seems to wear jeans of varying colors, dark brown, blues, and dark greens.

E= Penny– She wears whatever flatters her figure in a cute way, unless she is supposed to look homey/slummy and she is in sweats. It is undeniable she has the largest variety of clothing styles among the whole cast.

Other shows do this too. Just check out some images of your favorite shows online. Not every show does it, but many do. Bet you’ll hate me now because you won’t be able to stop noticing it. Sorry. But it had to be shared.

A Cosplay Diary: Idea

28 May

Meet Madame Masque. She’s all burnt up under that mask and emotionally charbroiled in the inside, but she sure does looks cool in that outfit carrying those badass guns.

Here’s a full figure type pic:I got my buddy Kerry from H.S. to help me make this ensemble due to my shatty  (no not shitty, shAtty) sewing skills. Kerry is a costume designer for theatres in the NYC area. I got me some connections. 🙂

Anyway. We’ll meet sometime next week to figure out a plan of execution then go from there.

In the meantime I got some wicked awesome boots to start the look of the costume, to set the mood kinda. What do you think?:

Suck it all you bought in Ricky’s Wonder Woman costume cosplay wannabes! Now… where can a girl buy a big cool fake gun and some gold spray paint?

I’ll keep you guys updated on the progression of this monster.

Roger Rabbit will do anything for a buck.

21 May

I was lucky enough to meet Charles Fleischer at the Motor City Comic Con last weekend. Since Marina Sirtis was too up tight to do me a solid, I asked (aka paid) Mr. Roger Rabbit himself to do the deed. Wanna know what I got?

This:

—>Click me to hear Lena’s new Roger Rabbit voicemail.<—

Sadly I forgot to tell him my common name was Lena not Mary, but whatever. Roger fucking Rabbit is my voice mail. Or will be once I figure out how to hack itunes and make it so.

Just wanted to share some awesomeness with my homies.

Comic Conventions: Pros vs. Fans

1 Apr

Fans pack a few cans of Pepsi for hydration, a Snickers bar for energy, and hand sanitizer for hygiene.

Pros pack drawing pens for sketches, fresh sharpies for autographs and cell phones to pretend they’re busy if they want to be left alone.

Fans’ post-convention evening festivities include unloading all the freebies and purchased treasures from the day and spreading them all over their hotel beds, followed by grabbing some grub at the local diner and discussing who saw who drawing what, and finally, following big name pros to the “industry only” bar and hitting on chicks there who are still in costume from day’s con.

Pros’ post-convention evening festivities include consuming the free happy hour drink at their hotels’ bars followed by dinner at a nice steakhouse with fellow industry buddies, then finding out where all the other industry people have gone to for after dinner drinks and finally hitting on chicks at the bar still in costume from day’s con.

Fans’ key moments at conventions include getting a sketch from the biggest name they can afford, meeting one of the actors from Battlestar Galactica, and taking a picture of a real life slave Leia.

Pros’ key moments at con include being paid well for sketches by adoring fans, meeting one of the actors from Battlestar Galactica and taking a few pictures of slave Leia, Power Girl, Ms. Marvel, Tigra, and that chick with the orange crotch suspenders from Fifth Element.

Fans’ nemeses include broken ATM’s, closed freebie lines and being looked at with unfettered disdain as they plow down toddlers to buy a raffle ticket for the Stan “The Man” Lee signing.

Pros’ nemeses include running into their editors, forgetting popup banners they JUST got made, and running out of hand sanitizer minutes before a repugnantly moist fan comes in for a handshake.

And now an awesome gift from Mike bought at a convention:

Not a sight you wanna see:

6 Dec

Yes that is an exposed wire sitting in a pool of water.

F.Y.I. This was at the Brooklyn King Con this year. Brooklyn is dangerous if you’re not wearing your rubbers. RUBBER BOOTS YOU PERV!!

The vampires in 30 DAYS OF NIGHT…

6 Dec

look a little bit inbred.

Let’s compare and contrast:

See, I told you so.