odds and ends: dinosaur dracula, comic pull list

One of my all-time favorite websites is X-Entertainment, a free-for-all tribute site to all the things that made my childhood rad. Updates to X-E have been sporadic in the past few years… but that promises to change with the advent of Dinosaur Dracula, X-E’s newly branded web address!

So far, Matt Caracappa has looked at Garfield and Friends fruit snacks, Fright Flicks trading cards, and my personal favorite, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cracker topper. X-Entertainment was surely an influence on my Thrift Store Finds posts, so I think anyone who likes those would truly love Matt’s writing. Check it out.

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We all know that I am something of a fan of the movies Alien and Aliens. I suppose you could say I had the misfortune of being born too late to see any of those movies in theaters- the only Aliens movies I’ve ever seen on the big screen have been muddled (Alien 3) botched (Alien: Resurrection) or just god awful (any of the Alien v. Predator movies, but I haven’t actually seen any of those).

Well, I’ve finally had the chance I’ve been waiting for last night; my most anticipated movie of the summer has to be Prometheus.

The “not a prequel” prequel to Alien, I was excited enough to see this flick that I broke free of my normal old man routines and went to a midnight showing. Even though director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Daniel Lindelof have been pretty straightforward, saying Prometheus is something new… I mean, c’mon. It’s an Alien movie.

…and I loved it. I loved it despite the cardboard cut-out characters. I loved it despite the gigantic plot holes. I loved Prometheus despite its’ structure, seemingly designed to infuriate the most nit-picky fans of this franchise. It’s a gorgeous movie worth seeing on the big screen.

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My current comic pull list is woefully small, and getting smaller by the month. Right now, these are the books I’m asking my fine comic retailer to put aside for me.

Daredevil (Marvel Comics) – Wrote about this back in September. It’s currently the only traditional superhero book I’m keeping up with regularly. I was lucky in that one of my favorite comic artists currently working in the genre, Chris Samnee, came on board the book a few months ago. Marvel’s putting out a LOT of books I find rather nonsensical right now, but Daredevil seems to exist outside the sucking whirlpool of crossovers and maxi-series. As long as that stands, I’ll chip my $3 bucks in every month.

Ghostbusters (IDW) – Wrote about this one back in October. As a fan of the property, this is just a treat. The stylized artwork straddles the line between caricature and cartoon and the stories are a decent natural outgrowth of what was laid out in the movies.

The Walking Dead (Image Comics) – I’ve been following this book since issue #5 and we’re almost upon issue #100. That might be the longest consecutive run reading one book I’ve ever had as a comic fan. I’ve found the zombie apocalypse tale has gotten a bit stodgy in recent years, but I still like TWD well enough. I’m interested to see where writer Robert Kirkman’s going to take the book as it moves into triple digits.

Reset (Dark Horse Comics) – A new mini-series from cartoonist Peter Bagge. Honestly,  I’d buy stereo instructions if Bagge was the illustrator; his work on Hate is my favorite comic book of all time. I haven’t flat-out loved his work since, but I admire Bagge’s attempts to stretch himself as a writer. Of late, he seems pretty interested in the concept of how we relate to the world via technology and Reset follows the concepts he’s visited in his OGN Other Lives. We’re only on the second issue of this one and it’s interesting enough.

…and that’s it, really. $14 dollars worth of new comics every month. I still troll Half-Price Books for cheap back issues, but I probably drop about $5 dollars on those, give or take.

You might notice there are no DC Comics on my pull list anymore… and that’s a fact. As far as “the big two” publishers go, I’ve always been a DC guy. I guess I still am – both of my boys are fanatical about Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman and that’s fine by me. I just can’t seem to find any DC Comics I enjoy reading these days!

The company’s big reboot of all their superhero titles seems to have goosed fans into getting interested in old properties, but I find most of the books I’ve sampled have been not my cuppa. Combine that with some of the problems I have with DC’s stupid Before Watchmen publishing initiative and it’s pretty easy for me to take a pass on the companies’ books.