Steve Sansweet, Jedi Master Of Hyperbole

Lucasfilm held a Star Wars panel at the Wizardworld Chicago comic convention this last weekend, and Lucasfilm Director of Content Management & Head of Fan Relations Steve Sansweet* was on hand to fling hyperbole like so much monkey crap:

Re: the new Clone Wars CGI movie and series: "It's going to be more cinematic than any other show on television."

Re: The Force Unleashed video game: "It's the most exciting, dramatic Star Wars game to date."

Re: the Star Wars-themed episode of Robot Chicken: "one of the great Star Wars spoofs of all time."

Wow. Congratulations, Steve Sansweet, you're now officially the the Donald Trump of Star Wars fandom.

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* Is it just me or does it look like he peed his pants in that Wiki shot? He probably got overly excited because he's holding "The single most impressive TIE Fighter pilot figure of all time in the history of the world! Ever!"

FYI, Kids

I am totally going to this show.

We Are The Champions, My Friends

Polls closed Friday. High Five! won. It'll be up tomorrow. Are you psyched? Not yet? Then how about if I show you the cover art? Will that help? Maybe? Okay, here.

Better?

Also, I started Twittering and added a little box to the sidebar. Are you on? Because I feel weird just Twittering at Chris.

And speaking of the Internet, would anybody be interested in participating in a forum related to the blog/pop culture/life in general, etc.? Lemme know below.

Sunday Comics: Badoom!

Is this the most awesome thing ever printed on paper, or should I keep looking? I mean, look at this:



That's right. That just happened. Your eyes = not deceiving you. It's the Thing straight cold-cocking Devil Dinosaur.

And while this is pretty awesome, I don't think I need to give up my search for the Most Awesome Thing Ever just yet. As rad as this is, this page has two strikes against it:

Strike #1: Um, who dressed the Thing? Has Ben Grimm been shopping the International Male catalog again? Because I thought the intervention in Fantastic Four issue #177 took care of that. I'll never forget Mister Fantastic saying, "Look, Ben, we love you, it's just that outfit makes you look a little, uh, well ... gay?" A classic.

Seriously, that Hawaiian shirt? Sorry, but not even the Blue-Eyed Idol Of Millions can pull that off. Folks, I'm gonna drop some fashion knowledge on you, free of charge: Never ever ever buy or wear a Hawaiian shirt. Never. Ever. Not even ironically. I know it's tempting, but just say "no." Buy a postcard or a snowglobe or something. Please. You will look like a total clown.

Also, Ben, what the heck is up with your sandals? Are they some souvenir from a time-travel adventure to ancient Rome that I haven't read yet? Because the rule for Hawaiian shirts applies to Roman sandals, lederhosen and dreadlocks/white people cornrows as well.

And while I'm ripping on my most beloved of comic book heroes, dude, your shorts are too short. I think I was some of your orange rocky junk on page 7. Not pleasant.

Strike #2: On the next page you find out that that isn't Devil Dinosaur. Not really. Which is a bummer and totally negates any amount of awesome promised by that page.

It also means I must get back to my Thing/Devil Dinosaur fanfic: Ben Grimm and Devil Dinosaur Team Up To Defeat Doctor Doom and His Evil Cadre Of Atomic-Powered Doombots With Jetpacks and Lasers and Also There Are A Lot Of Evil Dinosaur Robots That Get Like Totally Tore Up In the Process And It All Ends Up In Space Somehow And the Thing And Devil Dinosaur High Five After Defeating the Bad Guys and Then Eat Pizza.

Turns out Ben's lady-friend Sharon Ventura is starring in Devil Dinosaur: The Movie as Moon Boy's monkey girlfriend's stunt double (get all that?) and this is just a huge animatronic Devil Dino. Which nobody bothers to mention to Ben. And this sort of stuff keeps happening. For like the whole issue. But they just keep berating him for trying to help/save people who appear to be in danger rather than just cluing him in beforehand. Why? Because otherwise, you have no comic book, I guess? Also, it was written in 1986.

Basically, it's a bone-headed precursor to this (which is really some great comicbookery), only in the Concrete story, a giant green dinosaur doesn't come out of the sea, attack the special effects and then saunter off once the fake Devil Dinosaur starts shooting sparks because "I guess they didn't have sparking and fizzing dinosaurs back where he comes from! Whatta chicken!"

Only in comic books, folks.

(All of this boneheadedness/awesomeness can be found in The Thing issue 31, published January 1986, which was in a big box of random comics I got from a church member who I helped move.)

Honey From A Haunted Hive

We watched Bee Movie with the girls tonight and ... so, bees are basically Jewish? Is that the point of that movie? How far were we supposed to take the metaphor? Because they go to great lengths to equate Bee-ishness to Jewishness and then you start thinking about it and it starts to get weird and then you're very confused. Just don't start thinking about it; you'll end up with a nosebleed. And a stomachache. And a hangnail. You have been warned.

Alls I know is that Patrick Warburton was in that movie, and where Brock Samson goes, I go. Also, the humans in that movie were weird looking, weren't they?

POW! - Attack!

Personality Crisis

In case you were wondering, I bought the second issue of Final Crisis last night. And it rocked.

"But Dylan, just how much did it rock?" you ask?

My answer to that would be "It rocked most egregiously, my good friend. Most definitively, even."

But what is the rest of the Internet saying? At least the non-fanboy knuckle-dragging Newsarama trolls, that is. Well, the always-illuminating Jog has a review up, there's another by Graeme McMillan over at The Savage Critics, Douglas Wolk has his annotations up, as does Funnybook Babylon.

I'm still trying to understand the hate for the first issue. I mean, it's Grant Morrison, people. What were you expecting? Seriously, have you not read any of his other work? Because this is boiler-plate "first issue Morrison comicbookery" here. Glimpses of the big, epic threat. The feeling that you're almost understanding what's going on. Touching on all the threads that will come together before this is all through. An overture of sorts. This is not summer multiplex blockbuster comics. Leave that Michael Bay stuff to Marvel, this is epic Kubrick comics; a fairly cerebral affair with slow builds, layered symbolism and not a lot of explanation for the slow kids. You're going to need to pay attention and put some pieces together. There will be a quiz. We have a lot of time and not a lot to get through.

Wait.

Scratch that. Reverse it.

This is Morrison's JLA genetically crossbred with Seven Soldiers in an underground laboratory while The Invisibles look on, reading New X-Men out loud to pass the time.

[ sigh ]

Too bad it will all be retconned in five years time so we can go back to how it was back in the day and we can all feel so warm and snuggly all wrapped up in our nostalgia, just like a comfort blanket, just like mommy's womb.

In the meantime, I would suggest we enjoy the ride and hope we get a crazy awesome Grant Morrison-scripted Fourth (Fifth?) World/New Gods comic out of this. However, I wouldn't recommend anyone hold their breath for such a comic, as I'm still waiting on a Frankenstein! (or anything, really, but a Frankenstein comic would be aces) comic to come out of the explosion of radness that was Seven Soldiers.

A Family Of Deer Were Happy That the Clearing Looked Like A Laundromat

For father's day I received a "Buy any Threadless tee you want" coupon from my beautiful ladies. After much deliberation and numerous consultations with the tea leaves and chicken entrails, I picked this baby. I picked this one because it matches this vintage cutie.

How'd I do? Did I choose wisely?

Lemme Tell You Something, Kids

There are many things in this world that I know. I'm not bragging, I'm just saying. You hang around this world long enough and keep your ears and mind open, you pick stuff up. Stuff like the fact that Empire is easily the best Star Wars movie. Or that music sounds better with headphones on. That baseball is best enjoyed at the stadium with a bag of peanuts, maybe a hot dog or two. That, despite your prayers, wishes and letters to Santa, maybe there will never be another Grandaddy album. That Grant Morrison stands bald head and shoulders above anybody else in the rapidly fading field of comicbookery. That maybe wrestling isn't entirely real. That there is nothing sadder/funnier/more annoying than a bunch of middle-aged drunk guys all dressed up for a night on the town singing "Who Let the Dogs Out" at the bar of an Italian restaurant and somehow managing to sing it wrong. That Jack Kirby was called "The King" for a reason. That "the Numbers" don't mean anything really, they're just mysterious numbers, so stop asking the producers what they mean.

Well, I can add this to my list of "Things I Know": Diet Dr. Pepper is freaking delicious.

Quote For the Day

"We'd lie to clubs and say we were a Top 40 band. It was rare if we got to play through the whole night. It incited people to want to get in fights with us. We'd go, 'Here's another song by Foghat, it's called "Mongoloid".'"

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Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo
from Babylon's Burning: From Punk To Grunge
by Clinton Heylin