Rick and Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons: Deluxe Edition by Patrick Rothfuss

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is the definition of a niche product. The only people I think would enjoy this are the intersection in the Venn diagram of D&D fans and Rick and Morty fans. I know I’ve been watching Rick and Morty since the first season and I can’t imagine that I would find this collection if my kids hadn’t gotten me into D&D a year or so ago. Almost all of the humor comes from D&D jokes and Easter Eggs.

The Mocking Dead Volume 1 by Fred Van Lente

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Parodies are hard to do well. The worst parodies are unbearable, the best deconstruct the tropes. I was afraid The Mocking Dead would be the former, but since I got it as part of a huge Humble Bundle, it was nearly free for me to check out. Luckily it turned out to be less Scary Movie and more like something Mel Brooks would put together.

Wizzywig: Portrait of a Serial Hacker by Ed Piskor

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is a commentary on the sad state our country has been in since the 70s and 80s when it comes to computer crime. Although there should always be consequences for skirting the law we have often taken it a bit too far. This graphic novel was sad to read in the wake of Aaron Schwartz’ suicide when threatened by law enforcement.

Comics: A Global History, 1968 to the Present by Dan Mazur

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclosure: I received this book as part of the Goodreads.com First Reads program in which the winner recieves a copy of the book in exchange for a review. (It’s slightly more complicated than that, see the Goodreads First Reads terms for all the details)

I love reading these types of histories about culture. I have read similar books about photography and animation published by Taschen. This isn’t my first time reading about the history of comics, I also read 10 Cent Scare and Grant Morrison’s Supergods. Anyone who’s been reading my reviews for a while knows that I love comics and actually run a comics analysis site, www.comicpow.com.

It’s December and I should have gotten all of my Kickstarter products by now. But that’s not exactly what happened. Every single one of my Kickstarters was late except the one I had the least faith and relationship with - Random Encounter’s Let Me Tell You a Story.

I Fight Dragons – Project Atma (music): Holy COW! This band - my first Kickstarter - nearly disbanded over the Kickstarter! I thought they were the surest bet. They’d self-published their first few albums and they had rented a studio and had a producer and everything. However, they clashed over the direction the producer was taking them and almost broke up.

I’m writing this in late August - by the time this post appears I should have received all of my Kickstarter goods or they should be in the mail. Interestingly, even though the Kickstarter backer cycles were spread over about a three month period, they’re all supposed to be delivering the product at around the same time - 4th quarter of this year. As of the time of this writing, this is the status of my Kickstarters:

Here’s a photo of Stan Lee, the man most responsible for modern comics.

See more photos from last year’s Baltimore Comic-Con here. Sadly I won’t be able to attend this year due to a family commitment.

Those of you who have been reading this blog long enough know that I often write my blog posts during my lunch break at work and set it to post at some point in the future. I’m writing this post almost 1 month before it is to appear on the blog. So in the middle of July I find myself in what many who have backed projects probably experience as the Kickstarter Lull. I backed a project by I Fight Dragons and interviewed them about it here and I backed a comic project by Greg Pak and Jonathan Coulton. During the backing period as a way to drum up support there was a constant stream of both updates and digital goodies. IFD, in particular, gave backers 2 albums (live concert recording and a conceptual album) and a concert film. A little while after the backing period was over, the projects contacted us for the info they needed to fulfill our backer rewards. Since then I haven’t heard from either of them. On the rational side, I’m glad they’re focusing on creating what we paid them to create. But after the constant communications it just feels odd to have “radio” silence. Now we just wait for the products to be created. In the case of these two projects, the members involved are all veterans: IFD put out records before having a record company contract and Greg Pak has already done about a half dozen Kickstarters. So, outside of catastrophe, I don’t fear for my money. I could see where this silence might be more disturbing with an unproven team.

I had no intention of seeing Man of Steel in the movie theater; I was voting for Monsters University. I’ve grown quite tired with the constant universe rebooting. We all know where Superman (or Batman or Spider-Man etc) came from. Can we not waste another 2+ hours and $millions to retell that. Why can’t we just tell new stories? These characters have such rich histories and such iconic villains that it just seems so pointless to keep hitting the same notes. Additionally, while I liked Snyder’s Watchmen, I was NOT a fan of Suckerpunch. But my parents wanted to treat Danielle and I to a nice dinner for our wedding anniversary and Man of Steel was the movie that would get us out of the theater in time to make out reservations.

The thing I like the most about Twitter is the ability to interact with creatives in real time.  In the past you had to write a letter to a writer, artist, musician, etc and hope that, maybe, they’d actually read it and that, maybe, they’d feel compelled to reply with something more than boilerplate.  I started following Paolo Rivera after meeting him at Baltimore Comic-Con.  (Related topic: meeting a bunch of creators in person at Baltimore Comic-Con helped make them more “real” to me.  I’m not a jerky person, but it really does give me pause when I post a criticism to someone on twitter.  Unlike these guys.)  So when Paolo tweeted something from his blog that I wanted to comment on, I kept failing the captcha he had on the comments.  I tweeted and (to my surprise) was retweeted by Paolo: