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Episode 101

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Episode 100

Episode 99

We start in ANGER, in response to a tweet question, “Who comes back from the N52?” Batpeople/Batmite. I run through the history of G’nort, puppy green lantern; Batman animated episode with Scarface, quickly looked at.  We mention Carl Potts. Who does THAT? Box o’ shite contenders. Then we get into some books with Snyder’s Batman, with the standard “how does he die” routine. Killer Croc’s sewer living space hierarchy. We question henchman policies. Look at some Avengers books. Wonder where Zemo is. We question Sharon Carter’s judgement; question Jessica Jone’s judgement  as well. Mention celebrities in CT; disgusting adult jokes in Avengers; cover some Spider-Man; look at Iron Man and the fallout of his relapse. Detective Comics; Wonder Woman; We love apes with rocket packs. And So. Much. More.

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Episode #98

Here it is, all done and over.

Here we are with Day Three’s photos!

These batches of pics taken by techjedi; note however that there are many, many more taken by our staff photographer from Western Washington with us. Andrew is a photographer based in Tacoma who loves to shoot Cosplay for fun.

If you would like to have some photos taken with out the distractions associated with a CON contact him. Photos would be free but may be used in a portfolio. Andrew does work for the Tactical Products Industry and would love to branch out into Cosplay. Help him and yourself out.

The more professional looking pics:
http://www.akolstadphotography.com/

Andrews Flickr stream

Batch of pics taken by techjedi; note however that there are many, many more taken by our staff photographer from Western Washington with us. Andrew is a photographer based in Tacoma who loves to shoot Cosplay for fun.

If you would like to have some photos taken with out the distractions associated with a CON contact him. Photos would be free but may be used in a portfolio. Andrew does work for the Tactical Products Industry and would love to branch out into Cosplay. Help him and yourself out.

The more professional looking pics:
http://www.akolstadphotography.com/

Andrews Flickr stream

Come check us out on Facebook, twitter @themeanergeek , Fan Advisory Network, leave us voicemail at 203 533 4910 and mail us at themeanergeek@gmail.com

Episode 97

Thing is, sometimes I don’t like the news. Like when they start talking about digital distribution, again. What I don’t like about the digital distribution is the constant need to harp on the iPad. Now, the iPad is a brilliant device, really, and something I’ve been fiending on, in a roundabout and fully refusable way considering the price. Considering that I have 6 other computing devices, one of which is a laptop with an Air Card, and a smart phone, there’s just no way I can give up 400-800 dollars for YET ANOTHER computing device. One with a fraction of the storage and power in my sub 1000 dollar laptop.
Not for the singular purpose of reading comics, anyway.
I’ll bypass the whole tactile/hold it/smell it/take it to the bathroom motif of reasons not to go electronic, as they are overdone and obvious.
The thing about these portable media devices is this: Who the hell has one? I keep reading that the Ipad has sold millions of pieces-where? I work in a techjob-I see dozens of Geeks of various levels of nerditude every single day; not one of my coworkers owns an iPad. Very few of them even have iPhones, and they certainly have no desire to read comics on them. I live in the richest state in the Union, and I’ve seen exactly two iPads out in the wild-one of which was two years ago May in Brooklyn. I have seen absolutely no one with one of these things in the state you’d expect to see the most of them, because disposable income is purportedly highest here.
I’ve occasionally heard that they’re great for commuting and the bus and the train, but in this state, unless you’re going to New York or Boston regularly, you are not on a train very often at all-there is not one subway in Connecticut. Busses are a joke since the cities are so small, and the population riding buses is not the population that are going to be buying iPads. And around here, the population buying iPads, (I have to guess, since I’ve never seen one out there) are also not the population that’s going to be reading comics. I work at a very large coprorate helpdesk, and only just now are the executives, and the executives only, permitted iPads. And they only use them for email. No actual coprorate apps. You can’t do accounting on one of these; you can’t engineer a fan blade on one of these.
Let’s be honest here. These things are for hipsters. They’re for coffee shop assholes and executives looking to look awesome and edgy. They can be used by Doctors, but Doctors hate change and new tech, at least until the current old guard retires. It’ll be a while before all the old fuckers in charge give up a simple clipboard.  UPS can use them, maybe, if they prove more useful than the purpose built hand scanners. A buddy of mine’s school system hands them out like candy to teachers and administrators, but they don’t require anything be done with them. How can an iPad user be serious about a piece they’re required to have, but not required to use? An entire school system can’t find a purpose for this thing.
Fact is,  I’ve only ever heard anyone talking about them in reference to comics in other podcasts and the occasional article. It’s going to have to get some serious penetration into the casual markets before it takes off for this type of media consumption at all.
Incessantly, I hear about the potential to distribute comics cheaply through iPads and other slates or tabs or whatever they’re being called this week. This is clearly inevitable. And, in a wide regard, it’s just fine. Comics are Comics. If they can keep normal quality then hey, fuck it. But don’t expect me to go spending that much dough, and then the monthly data fees, and then the actual costs of the comics themselves, without ALLLLL the costs getting much lower. 99 cents? Sure. 99 cents plus 30 bucks a month for data? Screw you. I only spend 100 bucks a month for paper comics. I’m not spending 130.  Imagine this formula:
Paper comics=$100/30 days=$25/week
iPad data plan from att=250meg=$15/month, overages at another $15/month
Average pdf/cbz comic=10-30 megs
You could get roughly 8-25 comics a month with this plan; at .99 a pop=8-25 dollars.
But that’s only if you do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE WITH IT.
Add email, a couple youtube clips, a Netflix or Hulu movie, and you’re skyrocketing past that bandwidth charge of 250 megs a month for 15 dollars. So now you’ve tacked on another 250meg for 15 dollars-you’re at $30 a month for data. which, by the way, only 5 bucks more than the 2gig plan. iPads aren’t yet usable on Sprint, last time I checked, and so are not eligible for a reasonable unlimited plan. ATT, Verizon, and most other unlimited plans are completely out of range of most hard comics collectors, since they’re spending their dough on comics. I don’t personally know any executive comic collectors. There’s an argument that states that users of tablets and smart phones will just up and find comics randomly searching apps from the app stores. Really? Alright, I’ll grant that finding Comixology, or the DC app, or the Marvel app, or Dark Horse could be easy in a stumble-upon kinda way. But I have great difficulty grasping that simply knowing the app and the entertainment available behind it exists will turn people into comics fans. Let me show you why.
Years ago, when Garth Ennis was still publishing the out-of-his-goddamned-mind-masterpiece Preacher, I told a couple people about it at a party, (yeah, I used to be quite the evangelist) I had two highly educated people begging me for each new trade as it came out. They read all 60+ issues, and then never touched a comic again. My boss, supervisor, cubemate, coworker in the diagonal cube over, the virtual worker in Texas, they all watch The Walking Dead.  Not one of them has expressed an interest in my copy of the Compendium. (I’ve offered) They all watch Game of Thrones. None of them have borrowed mine or asked where they could get copies for themselves of the five books.
And, before you forget the sentence several paragraphs ago, I’m a tech pro surrounded by tech pros. There are more sports fans in my rather large support group than comics fans. I’m the only comics fan in fact. It’s not for lack of knowledge, it’s not for lack of marketing (the movies do an amazing job of marketing) If computer guys can’t get into comics, who the hell can? Somehow people have this sentimental and rather naive view that the awesomeness of comics is irresistable. I assure you, it’s fully resistable.
The other thing I’m concerned about is backup.  Oh, it’s all “the cloud” now. But no one has really figured out what that means yet. For now it’s a lot of offsite storage. That’s about it. Comixology goes out of business? Then what? If you have local copies, ok, fine, then your tablet breaks. Flash-nand memory is only good for so many reads and writes. It’s going to die just as surely as a reg’lar ol’ disk drive. Then what? Suppose for a second Dark Horse falls out and finally bankrupts. Now you have to replace a machine and your books-but you can’t get the originals anymore-they were on DHC’s cloud…Who’s  got the rights to republish digitally? Who knows? You only spent spent 99 cents an issue, but now you have to replace 500 issues somehow. You got five hundred dollars, after replacing your tablet?  I’m just trying to think of considerations that haven’t been mentioned. Some kind of blind faith in both the tech and comics industries has led everyone to think everything will be available for ever, anyway they want it, and that just can’t be so.
Three versions and the iPad still doesn’t have usb ports or SD slots. Sure, Apple isn’t even going to go out of business, not in the next couple generations,  but Samsung’s tablet division could, HP has been in danger several times, and Motorola has already failed at a tablet. Amazon seems to be THE practical competitor to Apple, and yet it’s still small for a comic book layout. There’ll have to be innovation on the part of content creators and hardware makers.
It sounds like I’m poo pooing the whole thing. But enthusiasm has fucked early adopters since the begining of transistorized technology, and the learning curve just gets steeper and more expensive.

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Episode 96

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All of our Episode 100 Boxes OH SHITE! are spoke for! You’re too late!

Episode 95

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Episode 94

Episode #93

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Episode #92

TWITTER: @akolstadphotos

I fell into Con/Cosplay photography in 2008 at Comic Con International in San Diego.  A friend with a Comics based blog [that'd be me, Techjedi-ed.] invited me for the trip, since he was coming all the way from the east coast so I couldn’t say no. I had seen general media coverage of the event in years past but I did not realize on what scale the actual convention would be.  Since that first SDCC I have learned a lot of about cons and some good ways to snap photos of all the Cosplayers.  Here’s a bit of information on how to deal with the crowds and lighting so you can have some fun and still be able to have quality photos to share on your social media outlet.

Tip #1: Know Your Camera:  Read the manual or watch a Youtube demo, but do whatever you have to do to know the ins and outs of your camera.  Be able to switch the white balance and exposure controls on the fly. There are all types of lighting at venues that host Cons. All of them are bad. Even most cell phones have some type of exposure controls so break it out and learn them.  We don’t need to discuss the fancy terms here like under and over exposure. Just know how to find the exposure compensation on your device and figure out how to make it brighter if you need to.  ISO is also important when it comes to making adjustments for bad lighting- know how to boost it when you need to.

Tip #2 Use The Flash: The lighting is poor in a lot of arenas so use the flash if you have to. For people who only want to use off camera flash contemplate this: A flash burned photo of a gorgeous Supergirl is better than a blurry photo of a gorgeous Supergirl.

Tip #3 Bring Extra Batteries: Nothing sucks more than running out of juice the third hour of a ten hour Con.  Using the flash will drain the batteries so have more.  In some cameras using the techno features like HDR settings will be energy intensive.  There is no need to spend big bucks on a Canon or Nikon brand battery. Duracell and Energizer make reliable camera batteries at about half the cost.  Amazon.com has great prices on precharged rechargeable AA’s which are what I order for shoots to power my flash units.

Tip #4 Always Be Ready. There was a great The Family Guy Cosplayer I caught last year in a photo that made its way around the world. Not too many people must have been ready to catch him because when I Google it the majority of the results are my photos.  I also caught a few photos of Denise Masino when I happened upon her in the hallway as she was walking by. If I wasn’t ready I would have missed both shots and both of those photos have drawn more hits to my sites than any of my other photos.  Have the camera in your hands not in a purse or backpack.  If your camera has a slow turn on sequence leave it on so you don’t miss Will Wheaton or Norman Reedus walking by.

Tip #4 Extra Memory Cards: Costco and Wal-Mart sell decent cards for cheap. Have a backup card in case one malfunctions or gets filled. Remember to wipe them clean before you go. People always ask do borrow a spare from me b/c they forgot to download their Walt Disney World family vacation photos.

Tip #5 Photographing Kids @ Cons: If there is not already a large group of people photographing the Speedy and Baby Captain America, ask the adult that is with them if it is okay to photograph the child.  No guardian has ever said no to me or my cohorts. At most they parents ask that the child get a chance to put their mask on. Remember to always be polite.

Tip #6 Position Yourself in the Crowd:  A crowd will from in front of any of any cool looking Cospalyer. Instead of going elbow to elbow with the other Con Geeks squat low in front and get a different perspective. Superheroes look cool when shot from down low anyway.  That’s how they photograph CEO’s to make them appear more “majestic”.  Try to get to the center of the crowd to increase your chance of getting the Cosplayer to look at you. It ruins a great photo if lighting and background come together and the character is looking way off to the left.

Tip #7 Lose the Telephoto Lens: This goes for all you DSLR shooters.  From amateur to pro leave the 70-200mm f/4L at home. You won’t need it because there won’t be room to step back far enough to use it. And if you try to back up far enough away someone with a point and shoot Panasonic will step in front of you.  They don’t do it to be mean, it’s just hard to get out of the way at a con.  I’ll end up cutting you off  too since I’ll have a nifty fifty or 28-70 2.8.  The giant space left in your backpack by leaving the zoom out will come in handy for the swag you can get at Comic Cons.

Tip #8 Practice Makes Perfect: People need to know how to work their cameras before an event. Take time to practice by walking around your home and adjusting your camera or cell phone to all the different lighting conditions. These tips aren’t just for Comic Cons. I use these techniques at Shot Show SEMA and other places. Remember these tips during the upcoming Con season and I hope you find these tips helpful.

Episode #91

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Come check us out on Facebook, twitter @themeanergeek ,
Fan Advisory Network, leave us voicemail at 203 533 4910
and mail us at themeanergeek@gmail.com

Episode 90

Opening with Rucka Punisher, we like it but it’s strange to see a red puking vulture. weird. We then wonder about Ennis’ legacy to mainstream comics; Then we move out to Unwritten, where we actually use the word “parse” without irony; talk about good long runs briefly and who did what with them; and the dangers that go with them. Like Bendis. We take some live tweets like namor and aquaman; Kick-Ass 2 sparks a nasty debate where Tech gets seriously uncomfortable. It’s a roundabout conversation that ends in a vow not to buy kick ass again. Although Superior IS a lot of fun and we *are* looking
forward to that.There’s a contrast there that’s difficult to handle. Brilliant bores us terribly. We talk about Batgirl, Fear Itself finally completes. Fiction naming conventions piss me off. We SO look forward to the DEFENDERS! And SO. MUCH. MORE

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Episode #89

We LOVE them and will be using them EXTENSIVELY! I’ll be wearing mine to Emerald City Comic Con myself.

Kicking off some comics, we start with J.I.M. 628-630, tailing off fear itself and seeing consequences. Volstag enthralls us and we adore his characterization under gillen..I get a new nickname. Then over to Thor with “tiny little bald preist and Galactus.”  We get meta-physical with the new herald of Galactus. FF is next, where we find that although Diablo and Mad Thinker had gotten the drop on Doom, these villains need to be pumped up. We don’t like kids named bentley, especially as clones of villains. No one understands how Hawkeye still gets play.

Segueing with that we get NEAL ADAMS AVENGERS!  WOW. Why is Ultimo still around? We answer some tweets. We mourn DCs previously bad habits with female heroes. We have a Shatner riff. Top 5 semi-indie books. Our last Secret Avengers. Spider Island is a quick read we like a lot, but TechJedi quibbles at the “innoculation” of Mary Jane.

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Episode #88

AMERICAN VAMPIRE
AVENGERS
BATMAN
BATMAN AND ROBIN
BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT
CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BUCKY
DETECTIVE COMICS
GREEN LANTERN
IZOMBIE
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY
PUNISHER
UNWRITTEN
WINTER SOLDIER
WONDER WOMAN
STAR WARS AGENT O/T EMPIRE
ALL STAR WESTERN
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
AVENGING SPIDER-MAN
DEFENDERS
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN
MIGHTY THOR
NEW AVENGERS
IRREDEEMABLE
JUSTICE LEAGUE

Not counting minis and one shots and events. Still too high.

I’ve cut:

Action

Superman

Batgirl

Batwoman

Secret Avengers

Incorruptible;

JLI;

GLC;

Jennifer Blood;

Brilliant;

will soon be killing Irredeemable (in favor of trades) May have to kill Avenging Spiderman; considering there are two Cap books and therefore theoretically two Bucky books, I might have to kill Captain America & Bucky. I Zombie is on the cusp. Detective is SERIOUSLY on the block right now. Sorry, but Tony Daniels is *not* my Bat-Guy.

I’m going to keep Punisher as long as Rucka is on it but it’s out the fucking window unless his replacement is someone AMAZING. And this double shipping thing? Screw that. Depending how long it lasts, I’ll be dollar bin diving for these things. I had to add DEFENDERS because FRACTION IS MY MASTER NOW.

Some of you are going to note an almost complete dearth of indies. What can I say? Fuck em. I could make 10,000 more a year and my level of collecting would still be considered by many to be excessive. Like all of you, I like what I like, and *if* I can find something else I like, it’s got to push aside something I’ve previously liked. There’s only so much that can be done. I’ve read plenty of Indie stuff, and when it lasts, awesome, but how long do I have to wait for a new issue of some things? I’m gonna end up forgetting, and then eventually no longer caring. That’ll offend some of the more obsessive of you, but what the hell. Look at the name of the podcast.

I’m probably going to be be giving up WOW soon, as I haven’t seriously played it since my 4th (YEAH-FOURTH) character got to 85. Which was back in spring. I don’t care if they have goddamned pandas, THAT’S ANOTHER REASON TO GO. I may or may not be continuing SWTOR after lvl50-I’m halfway there, and although it is approximately ONE METRIC FUCK TON of fun, I don’t know that they have enough story and challenge after that. I’ve done the MMO thing three other times now. I get the procedure. But at 15 a month, at dcbs I could get what, 4 more books a month?

And I’m getting fatter and fatter and older and older. I need to be out and at the gym more, not sitting idly flipping pages. Or god forbid, clicking a fucking button to burn even LESS calories than flipping a page. I need to get back to an activity I love, like fencing, which is $325/3months. That’s more than THREE MONTHS COMICS in one shot. It’s a car payment.

There’s a thing I’ve noticed about many of us nerdy comic people. We are not fucking Hal Jordan.

And I don’t mean we are merely not having sex with him. We have no willpower of any kind. Show us *anything* with Spider-Man on it and we buy it. We don’t give the slightest fuck. Batman? Just as well. Star Wars? Oh god, even worse. I have cocoa mugs and cocoa with SW on it for fucks sake! It leaves many of us sacrificing and scrimping and scraping along. And frankly, true believers, that is not how I want to live.

I read tweets saying things like, ” I’ll never be able to afford that Starman Omnibus!” Well fucko, maybe you could have if you gave up the Starman Underoos, bought only one copy of Starman instead of issues, trades, absolutes, and Essentials. Quadruple dipping, what are you, fucking insane? If I want to get an Absolute Hush, I want to be able to buy that, right then. That’s why I don’t buy the freakin Batman plushie in three different costumes. Or sixty dollar sets of action figures that just sit on the wall.

Which is why I’m cutting my list. I’ve given up the majority of kitch-buying. I’m showing some control. But I could use a hand identifying what I’m hanging onto from inertia, and what I really love.

What d’ya think?

Episode 87

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Episode 86

Episode 85

Come check us out on Facebook, twitter @themeanergeek , Fan Advisory Network, leave us voicemail at 203 533 4910  mail us at themeanergeek@gmail.com

Come check us out on Facebook, twitter @themeanergeek , Fan Advisory Network, leave us voicemail at 203 533 4910  mail us at themeanergeek@gmail.com

Episode #84

Episode 83

Episode 82.5

I came into this book stone bloody cold. Greg Pak tweeted that he wanted reviewers and I thought, “aw hell yeah!” I’ve gone through his Hulk stuff, and enjoyed it thoroughly.

To say I was intrigued by a this-close-to-down-and-out..what? Warden? Guard? CFO? CO? was at best a misnomer. This guy, on the first page, reminded me of god knows how many shopping trips I had been on; how did he get there? I want to know! Who was this huge, imposing fella didn’t have beer money, but had position?

Turns out he’s a captain for the prison board. Which is always interesting. Break outs, breakins, prison is a pretty good place to put a story. But this prison?

Hell itself. Which REALLLLLY makes me wanna see what can be done here. We see some very, very interesting glimpses of characters, some of whom may be in their original forms, like the un-named fire guy gets extinguished and smashed to, um, smashed to hell. The General, with his nasty-assed hands, fresh from some unrevealed massacre-or merely the literal interpretation of his misdeeds, blood on his hands, don’t you know. It’s not beyond believability that there may be meta/super-powered entities in this universe, since, you know, Hell is a prison that can be accessed largely at will.

Some unknown event has raised a ruckus in the City of Corruption, requiring someone to go down and investigate. Captain Romero and his team are tasked, after cryptic conversations with The Warden and the Cartographer and his sister. Interesting choice on the Cartographer; He clearly plays some important part we don’t know yet; it’s possible Hell shifts and changes it’s landscape so that constant re-mapping is necessary. If that’s it, then I’m on board with this character because his existence would have great impact on other characters navigating Hell.

Something I’m worried about though, is just how cryptic this could end up-there’s no indication that there’s something…(to avoid spoilers) retrievable down there, other than some doors are different than others,  and why it (or something else much cooler) would tempt the Captain to the events of the last two pages; The Warden implies he’s weak willed man, although that doesn’t seem to fit so far. I’m sure some flashback will explain how that knowledge came to Romero. It’s a trifling worry, to be sure, since the fast pace and the staggeringly good art of Tony Parker kept me involved and in the story, so the hiccup wasn’t a consideration.

I’m dying to see a map of Hell, find out how the City o’ Corruption links with the Pyramid, why the Warden is so far down (and WTF is with her eyes!). Juniper I don’t have enough to like or dislike one way or another. But now that the Captain is where he is, and got there how he did,  I think this book is rife with possibilities, and will certainly be plunking down the dough for it.

“We met on a train…” sounds like it would be the beginnings of a bad mystery novel, but it’s a literal truth with our new pals from Comic Cabal! Join the fun as fellow Connecticut Podcasters got to town on all the same shit we do. You’ll be the beneficiary as we try to keep our game up in the presence of fellow podcasters actually aware of our existence. Swign by and drop them some love. Just wipe up when you’re done.

This is one of the many reasons i love star wars. so many thousands of ways to get creative with it. From the crazy Vader Variations to our own CLONE PLATOON, you can’t miss giving something a star wars theme!

especially here:

We then move on ourselves and I do a small review of the anime Claymore. Moving on we catch up with the line ups of the DCnU. We make some initial decisions on what we might wanna buy, which gets shaken out in a couple episodes. I hate Grant Morrison again. We WERE RIGHT ABOUT SCOTT LOBDELL! Then i make the announcement that i will no longer get crossovers just to get a full story.

Check back for a few more NYCC pictures in a few days!

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Episode 82

Back from the one day oh my fucking god adventure that is NYCC! Unfortunately, aside from some serious picture taking (over 300), I have to say it was mostly a bomb. Although early on it was great for walking around and few people really interrupting movement, that rapidly changed toward noon. Got pretty intense, especially around the bigger dealer areas, although artists alley was almost always navigable. I kept missing the people i wanted to get sigs off of though, like time sale, and lots of others. I have to admit though, i was quite the idiot in my ambition; i compiled such a large pile of things to take that when i culled them to lose weight, i actually slashed my likelihood of getting sigs, as the ones i LEFT HOME were the ones that had free creators. I did walk away with a little bit though, and i was happy about that. Particularly nice was Kevin Maguire. at any rate, enjoy the photos to follow, and here a total wrap up on a supplemental episode this week.

More After the next Episode!

always did love ambush bug. i’ll kill this after a while, only messing with you based on the crease being a good way to find image poachers

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Episode 81

This only makes me mildly excited. I’m desperately trying to come to a point in my fanboy life I don’t instantly rail against something on the initial publication of new material, but it’s difficult. Almost programmatic. But I don’t think anyone can really say that Alfred, being an older man regardless of incarnation-gold/silver/dark/current/movie/cartoon age, etc, should be totign around guns in Batman’s presence, SAS training notwithstanding.

Episode 81 will be up Saturday, due to some hosting problems that are about 90% worked out. It is produced and in the hosting environment, but godaddy got some things goin’ on. Keep an eye out, We’ll be with you shortly! Till then, Enjoy this article from the Reverend Mad Duck!

A Glossary of Crap

On those admittedly rare occasions in which I awake from the alcohol induced haze that is my daily life, I have been known to give thought to you – the devoted listeners of the Mean Geek podcast. Of course my thoughts rarely run to the pleasant but there is occasionally a little lapse in the curmudgeonly bitter processes of the deeper regions in my brain wherein it occurs to me that most of my podcast recording life has been spent on the discussion of characters and concepts so awful and obscure that only the
hardcore comic geek has even the slightest inkling as to what the Hell it is I am referring to.

Of course anyone who knows me must realize that the inability of others to understand me has never stopped me and quite honestly, it never will. But it could be argued that success in the wonderful world of podcasting is repeat listeners and it could be further argued (my we are in an argumentative mood aren’t we?) that while people will return to things that they like and even to things that they do not like it is not the norm to continuely check in on the things out there that they do not understand.
This then leaves me with three possibilities:

1) Continuing on the way I am going – Tempting of course but not un-rude. Also has the negative connotation of forcing me to continue to listen to the Tech-Jedi’s whining about more failed attempts to increase our hits or whatever.

2) Change the way I do things – Obviously this is not going to happen. I mean sure I could just sit around talking about Deadpool and Wolverine or whatever popular crap is out there right now but then what is in it for me? I mean really, what kind of life is that for a podcaster? Talking about things people are actually interested in?

3) Explain what it is I’m talking about – Minimal effort towards maximum reward. Sounds like we have a winner here, people.

So here we go towards a little glimpse into the mind of the Rev. The Dark and Lonely world of the B-Side of the comic industry. Where to begin…. Why not start on the Marvel side?

A) Bullet

Many of the characters I will be discussing I tend to enjoy in more of a sarcastic kind of way but things are a little different with Bullet.

Bullet first appeared in Daredevil #250 in 1988 as created by Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr. To my way of thinking Bullet was one of the better things to come out of Nocenti’s run but he would quickly be eclipsed by Typhoid Mary. Bullet was the perfect antithesis of Daredevil – opposite both physically and morally. Nocenti’s Daredevil was possibly the most empathetic hero of the 80′s – at one point even sympathizing with Bullet over the love of his son whereas Bullet was so cheerfully amoral that he could barely stand to be in the same room as his own son Lance for any extended period of time. A big part of his appeal was the dynamic art of Romita. Bullet was basically a wall of muscle and unpleasantness with no fear (or couth). He was a monster and no future artist to tackle him, which admittedly is a small list, would never capture his menace the same way. Bullet was missed opportunity to my mind.

B) The Fabulous Frog Man

There is a reason why no one ever talks about the awesome villain pool featured in Daredevil comics. Leap Frog is a perfect example of why. Your classic inventor turned criminal Leap Frog was soundly thrashed by Daredevil a couple of times, joined a failed team attempt at defeating Iron Man and retired to mediocrity – or so we thought. One day his son Eugene discovered a Frog costume (presumably in the closet) and decided to re-claim the dubious honor of the family name by becoming a superu hero – the Fabulous Frog Man. Only one thing could stop him in this quest and sadly it was a big one; a complete lack of talent. Frog Man became a relatively infrequent thorn in Spider Man’s side, occasionally even aiding him through sheer ineptitude. He would even join a Super Hero team – the aptly named Misfits featuring other luminary Spider supporters as Toad and the Spider Kid. We should be thankful their stories were not chronicled.

C) Turner D Century

The challenge of writing a monthly book is a big one. Constant creativity on a schedule. These days that means huge storyline after huge storyline but the old school way was just as challenging a new encounter with a new villain every month. Even the greatest writer would stumble under such a burden and create the occasional duffer or two. Turner D Century is a perfect example of this – a young man obsessed with the morals and lifestyles of earlier times attempting to destroy modern civilization with flying bicycles built for two and flame wielding umbrellas. This was never going to be a character with their own book and everybody involved knew it. Turner was a filler villain and a particularly poor example thereof. I mean seriously, that is just awful. Turner would eventually fall victim to Scourge, the villain slaughtering vigilante who was created just to remove such characters from the general populace.

Well, God Bless Scourge I guess.

D) El Tigre

What can we say about Greer Grant Nelson? I mean my normal Mean Geek description would be Giant Annoying Cat Whore but for the purpose of an article I should probably expand upon that. So let me bone up on her history real quick. Okay science based cat powers… alpha radiation werecat powers… seriously… split human/cat personalities… well that only makes sense I guess… Hank Pym and Wonder Man at the same time… I have to be reading that wrong… Starfox… Luke Cage… West Coast Avengers… some sort of eveolved cat person dating… Skrull Hank Pym… ick… Skrull baby kitten… double ick… Yeah ok got it now. Giant Annoying Cat Whore. Done and out.

E) Terror Inc.

Years ago some cave people killed soem sort of green spiky face demon bear thing. The cave schmuck who actually did the deed takes on the demonic persona of said bear – Green coloring, Unnecessary facial spikes and the new and unsettling ability to replace his now rotting body parts with others and by doing so gain that bodies abilities. The possibilities are amazing. Imagine the potential for bedroom shenanigans – you know except for the whole green spikey face rotting body part thing. That could be a problem in retrospect. Terror began life as a villain which seems to be the role he was meant for – until somebody decided that there was some hidden heroic potential in the whole rotting corpse grave robbing creepy green factor. Really? This guy gets his own book? That just seems ridiculous to me.

So there you have it – the smallest of elaborations into the Rev’s references. Join me again when I decide to re-visit this from the DC perspective.

Bless You Fuckers.

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Episode #80

Episode HERE

General news story:

GRANITE CITY , MO• If Mike Meyer were a character in one of his favorite comic books, right about now he’d be looking up to see his red-caped hero swooping down.

Superman would use his X-ray vision and super hearing to track down the ill-willed individual who stole from him and hurl mountains if needed to capture him. That Meyer knows only the first name of the man, and can draw just a rough sketch of what he looks like, wouldn’t matter.

“He uses his powers not to benefit himself, but to help others,” Meyer said, explaining his fondness for the fictional character. “He’s the champion of the oppressed.”

Meyer, 48, of Granite City, has been on Social Security for a mental disability since age 23. To supplement that, he has worked part time at a McDonald’s in Collinsville since 1996. He lives alone in a humble, two-bedroom home with his dogs: Krypto and Dyno. Just about every room is a shrine to his hero.

It’s Meyer’s starry-eyed worship of Superman, protector of the world as it should be, that makes the theft from his home two weeks ago seem particularly cruel.

Meyer was tricked out of about 1,800 of his favorite Superman comic books, some dating to the 1950s. He also lost many of his favorite collector’s items: lunch boxes, an old-time radio, a Monopoly game and television set — all Superman-themed. The loot is worth about $4,000 to $5,000 in total, according to a friend who also collects.

The back bedroom of Meyer’s house used to have nearly 100 Superman figurines tacked to the walls. Now, those walls are bare…

There’s always some jackass who thinks it would be a great idea to make some money off someone trusting. This is disgusting. “Gary”, i hope they find your ass, and i hope you go to county for a while, and see what being taken advantage of really is. I’m so mad, and this is so serious, i can’t even pull out my trademark swears. I’m misting up, and I’m so close to crying i have to stop soon. He lost both his parents early in life and now this jackass has to swipe his stuff? I’m totally enraged here. My fingers are shaking typing this.

Some may be thinking this is some petty thing. It’s not. The man was lied to and manipulated, and don’t let the scale fool you-there’s no Madoff here, but Gary’s still a criminal and a jerk. I feel for Mike Meyer, and THEMEANGEEK.COM is going to try to help. You should too. from studds’ page:

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The Episode is here!

And coming soon: commentary articles from the Rev! More previews of CLONE PLATOON!

Well, Hurricane Irene has come and gone, and it has made us VERY late on any updates. Our after Con wrap up for ComiConn is still a few days off, since there is no power predicted to be had till at least tuesday. Watch your RSS feed for updates!

37 seems pretty low for a dork like me.

NEW PROJECT!

Read the remaining 63 novels.

Episode #78

Episode 77

Episode 76

Thanks to Sohmer and Desouza for a poignant and geeky endcap to history.

I had begun to make plans t be there, but of course loser friends with families and big new jobs that pay twice what the last one did get in the way, you know how it goes.

It’s always disappointed me greatly that the vast majority of us, including myself, will never get off the goddamned planet; especially me; there’s fuckin’ zombies out there somewhere, and aside from avoiding those, we all know that space zombies are more interesting.

But really, all the true exploration is done; Vasco DeGama and Perry and all the others have gotten that covered in the last 500 years. There isn’t a single place on the planet that hasn’t been photographed and documented, and claimed for some nation etc etc. The only cool thing left to do is get off this world. Seriously. Think for a minute. With a little dough, and a little bit of caution, you can see the majority of this planet quite easily. College kids do it every year if movies are to be believed, that is, backpacking through rainforest and Europe and Africa, etc after graduation but before the “big boy” job; that doesn’t take a lot of dough, especially if you work your way over on a boat; so where does that leave us for really new, different, exciting places to be.

Fucking SPACE.

Forget lasers and aliens and exploding nebulae and wormholes. Just to be not on this planet is such an awesome, awesome thought. Less than a thousand people in all of recorded history have ever done it. And isn’t that what geeky is all about? Not so much “not part of the herd” but part of something awesome. Leaving the planet would be SEVEN kinds of awesome.

Star Wars Posters on the Behance Network.

THESE are seven kinds of awesome. I absolutely adore the propaganda ones, and the strongly colored themes in each. and the Leia ones? C’mon, it’s friggin Leia! They’ve got a very Samurai Jack/60′s feel that just makes you excited.

Star Wars Posters on the Behance Network.