Ankle Breaking 8 year-old

This has absolutely nothing to do with comics, but it is so much fun to watch, I couldn't avoid posting it. This video is courtesy of The Big Lead, a great sports blog if you aren't already aware of it. The boy in the video is 8 year Cody Paul and his team the Los Alamitos Griffins went 15-0 this year on the way to the Pee-Wee Pop Warner Super Bowl Championship. This kid is crazy good. The Music playing is "Make It Rain" by Fat Joe and Lil Wayne and it is NSFW.

CG

Hulk vs. Bizarro #9: ME TUBE

Issue #9 of the 50 Foot Robot Studios webcomic Hulk vs. Bizarro. These are going to be moved to Monday and Fridays from now on, as Thursdays are just too busy. Enjoy!

A few more links for today

After a few days in a row of next to nothing, today has quite a few different things to talk about, enough for a second post. So here we go:

• Marvel has posted a "visual guide" of the entire Civil War crossover. What is a visual guide? I didn't know either until I checked it out and found out how awesome it is. It has every single CW cover, including all variants and second printings, and they are all in order according to Marvel. As an addendum to that is a "visual guide" for the Fallen Son series, also released today. While not as extensive, and missing the 100 blank variants that were sold for charity, it is still interesting to see.
  
• The actress who will play Supergirl on Smallville has been chosen according to SSH! and her name is Laura Vandervoort. As you can see from the picture below, she definitely fills the role physically (and quickly becomes the best thing to look at on that show). The catch will be whether she can act. Who am I kidding....
  
  
  
  
  
  According to IMDB.com, this will be the first major recurring role for the 23 year-old Canadian. And I can't wait.
• Some more cool artwork, this time from Mike Wieringo's personal site. Most everyone should know who this is, but for those who don't it is Dr. Sivana against a Captain Marvel background. Pretty sweet.
  
• Hell has frozen over: Rob Liefeld is returning to Image. I wouldn't normally care, but Liefeld's artwork should give me plenty of material when I am in a mocking mood. That is unless he has learned how to draw a human nose, or how not to give men extremely large breasts. This guy is a total hack. And the fact that Image has even let him return after what many call a very, very bad breakup (Liefeld helped found the company). Just so no one thinks I am being overly harsh or I don't know what I am talking about, here is the image that pretty much assured his demise at Marvel during the Heroes Reborn period.
  

Pretty picture heavy tonight, but that's ok with me. I'll be back tomorrow, and it looks like we may have a few guest reviewers on the way, too. We'll see when the emails roll in, but there are a lot of good things in store for the future. Make sure you sign up for the RSS feed by clicking this link, or the one on the top of the sidebar to get daily updates.

CG

Human Tetris

My apologies to anyone who is Japanese, but they are some extremely crazy people. In a good way. If you have ever seen the Humping Robot clip, you know what I mean, and the TV show on Spike called "Bonzai" is more proof. As if that wasn't enough, Hot Air has this clip of some type of Human Tetris. Enjoy!

CG

Linkblogging is bad for your health....

The comic world is quiet with the San Diego Comic Convention heading towards us at light speed. But there is some news here and there that is worth taking a look at. If you hear of anything that you feel should be covered here, please send me an email at thecomicrack@yahoo.com and I will include it.

• Kevin Spacey has been reported to be set to reprise his role as Lex Luthor in the next Superman film. Not much other information is known right now, except that Bryan Singer plans on shooting the sequel, called The Man of Steel, next year for a 2009 release. I am not crazy about this, not because of Spacey who I thought did great, but because of Lex Luthor. Are we going to get stuck in a rut with Superman villains like we did with the original movies, or are we going to move on to the big baddies like Metallo, Brainiac, Doomsday, etc.?
• Apple has released the official Cloverfield/1-18-08 movie trailer, so no more shaky bootlegged videos to try to see what is going on. And I gotta say, those previous videos sucked, there is so much more here than you could previously see, including the head of the Statue of Liberty getting thrown down the street. Definitely worth taking another look at.
  
  
  
  
  A couple of other things about this movie. The 1-18-08 site has another picture up and it still makes no sense, but I imagine the mystery will be revealed soon enough. Also according to JJ Abrams, the Ethan Haas sites are not related to this movie as was previously thought, but he hinted that there may be others out there that are.
• PWBeat has a collection of reactions from across the blogosphere (including me!) to the DC Comics announcement of their new Zuda Comics online imprint. It is interesting to see the wide range of opinions despite a rather small amount of information available. The people who are outright bashing it though I think would dislike just about anything from a major company anyhow, so not to discount them, but I would rather wait and actually see something before I panned it. Overall I think it is a good idea, and up to DC to do it right.
• If you are enjoying the current run of Green Lantern Corps, then you will also enjoy taking a look at the personal blog of Patrick Gleason, the current artist. He is also the artist on Robin and he has a look at the cover of Robin #166 before colors and after.
  
  

That's about all for now, as swim lessons snuck up on me this morning (for my daughter, not me), so if I find more later, I'll update this afternoon. Have a good day, and read lots of comics.

CG

Waiting on Wednesday - 7/10/07

This is my 100th post, and I could not have done it without the warm response I have gotten from all of you, even those who come here looking for Jessica Alba nude, for whatever reason. To be honest, after 100 posts, there is a bit of burnout, if any of you have noticed slightly fewer posts this past week or so. But have no fear, I have lots of good ideas coming up. I have a couple of articles to finish up, then we will get started with a lot more comic goodness. On to the comics!

As I said last week during the Release Reviews post, there are quite a few good comics being released this week. As a result, I will likely miss one or two that some of you think are worth reading or reviewing. So I encourage you, if I miss something here and you want to review it yourself, send me your review in an email at thecomicrack @ yahoo.com and I will post it Friday with the rest of my Release Reviews and give you full credit.


Marvel

• Deadpool/GLI: Summer Fun #1 - The all-important first spot (which really means nothing) goes to the one and only... Deadpool! Good ol' DP gets out of the shadow of his geriatric and boring partner Cable for a team-up special with none other than his old foes turned comrades the Great Lakes Avengers.
  
  The GLA has been appropriated in the Superhero Registration Act and has changed their name yet again to the Great Lakes Initiative and is solely responsible for all of greater Wisconsin! Expect lots of classic Deadpool goofiness, and Marvel is promising lots of ninjas. My only hope here is that Marvel will see the value of releasing Deadpool and his fans from the hell that his series with Cable has been.
  
  Deadpoolite, I am calling you out for an iin-character review of this issue. Either send it to me, or post it on your site, and I'll link it up.


• World War Hulk: Gamma Corps #1 - The entire premise of this mini-series seems a little dumb to me to be honest. General Ryker has taken the DNA of the Hulk, Abomination, the Leader and Doc Samson among others to create a team of gamma-powered killers who only job is to kill the Hulk. The characters to be featured are Grey (Hulk and the Leader), Griffin (based off the Betty Ross harpy mutation), Mess (a female red-headed Abomination), Mister Gabriel (black Doc Samson) and Prodigy (another Leader).
  
  I may be wrong about this like I was about Frontline, but it just doesn't stir any excitement in me. It may be because I have never been crazy about books centered around villains (you'll likely never see Thunderbolts on here as something I would read), or it may be because that lineup sounds like a poorly thought out idea. They took each of the gamma powered beings and slightly bastardized the ideas that made them great for all these years. If it would be that easy to take down the Hulk, don't you think the military would have come up with it a long time ago? And why no She-Hulk clone?


• New Avengers #32 - Last month in New Avengers they revealed that Elektra has been a Skrull for who knows how long, and it has sent the entire Marvel Universe into a tailspin wondering who they can trust and who they can't. But despite it being such a huge revelation, you have heard absolutely nothing about it in any other books.
  
  So here we are at the next issue hoping Brian Michael Bendis throws us a bone, and I have to be honest, I don't think he will. I can see him dragging this out throughout his run before they involve the rest of the universe in it. But being such a compelling story means that I will definitely be reading this and hoping to find out who is also a Skrull and what the hell that creepy looking baby was looking at at the end of the last issue.


• X-Factor #21 - What Marvel has to say about this issue:

  In a castle of ice in a far off land, a fearsome being called the Isolationist sits and waits and plans...except he need wait no longer. He is coming to Mutant Town, and is seeking out Jamie Madrox. But whether he and X-Factor will be enemies or allies pales in comparison to the shocking developments involving Guido's new job offer, Rictor's unexpected call to action, Siryn and Monet's new case, and--most stunning of all--Layla's disturbing discovery of something even she didn't know.

  Here's what I have to say about it:

  Who cares about all that, it has an 8-page Endangered Species story at the end of it, and that is the only reason I am going to buy this.

  Seriously, I have not paid any attention at all to this comic despite reasons I should love it. First off, it is part of the X-universe which I love, and secondly, it is written by Peter David, one of my all-time favorite writers. But I still don't care.

DC Comics

• Green Arrow: Year One #1 (of 6) - After last weeks Black Canary #1, this is the next "filler" series to span from GA #75 until their wedding and beyond. It has been said they will restart the Green Arrow series after al this is done, so take this series as an opportunity to either catch up on your GA history or to get acquainted with Oliver Queen for the first time.
  
  The creative team of Andy Diggle and Jock aim (get it, aim? hahaha)to tell the definitive origin story of the Emerald Archer. And judging by DC's sneak peek of the issue, it looks pretty good. I have never heard of Jock before this, he was previously the artist on The Losers which I am not familiar with, but his style of art looks like it will fit perfectly with Green Arrow.
  
  What makes me the most excited for this series above everything else, though, is that we get to return to the original Oliver Queen. We get to see the smart aleck, philandering playboy we grew to love before he got castrated in the One Year Later story where he became the Mayor of Star City and suddenly seemed excessively responsible.


• Green Lantern #21 - DC kicks off the Sinestro Corps War here as we see Hal Jordan and the other GL's of planet Earth go on a rescue mission. What the hell that means? I have no clue. There is an absolute lack of information about this issue, so I assuming that there is another big surprise in store for us.
  
  DC promises hundreds of villains, and the promotional poster they released (pictured, right) shows the Sinestro Corps and the Manhunters. Those, along with the Anti-Monitor, Superboy Prime and Parallax (Kyle Rayner) look to be the single most formidable force to ever face the Green Lantern Corps. I have said it before, I just don't see how the GLCorps can survive this. There will have to be enormous losses of life because that group just isn't going down easily, if at all. This soon after a reboot and introduction of so many characters seems to point towards a destruction and rebuilding of the Corps.


• Justice Society of America #7 - The first issue of JSA after the huge Lightning Saga crossover, and we get introduced to a new member. Well that is if you consider a third generation superhero "new". Citizen Steel joins the team that his grandfather (Commander Steel) and cousin (also Commander Steel) were both a part of, however, Geoff Johns promises that this is a brand new character, not just another rehash of an old concept. Because DC never rehashes old concepts...
  
  Citizen Steel was introduced in JSA #2 as Nathan Heywood, wo was attacked by a bunch of nazis under the control of Vandal Savage. He had some liquid metal spilled on him which eventually bonded with his skin and gave him a metal skeleton and superhuman strength. Also mentioned is that the JSA will begin to feel the effects of 52 on their little corner of the Multiverse.


• Countdown #42 - Looks like Countdown is finally going to kick into high gear... yeah, right. We have been hearing that for 10 weeks now. But this time it looks like it could possibly be true. This week we see the Suicide Squad, who made a small appearance last week in subduing Piper and Trickster, and also finally Ray Palmer, the Atom.
  
  While I look forward to more action, and I am not crazy about some of the characters already in the series and welcome new blood, I see adding more characters making the time we spend with every segment even smaller. I am also wondering why Mary Marvel and The Riddler are mud wrestling on the cover, and don't you wish they would go back to the stark single character covers they started the series with? Like the Joker cover or the more recent Mary Marvel cover?


• Also check out the Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters TPB coming out this week. I doubt I will get it myself, because of budget more than anything, but if you are looking forward to the upcoming Uncle Sam series this would make for some good reading to refresh you.

That's about all for this week. I haven't taken the time to look at what's coming out next week, so you'll just have to wait and see. I won't likely be posting tomorrow, unless something important happens, so I will see you all back here on Thursday for the next installment of Hulk vs. Bizarro and hopefully more information on the other stuff I have been up to lately causing some of this to be a little late.

CG

I Was Right About Online Comics

Kinda...

I spoke out last month about Online Comics and their place in the medium. In my post "To bit torrent, or not to bit torrent", I suggested some different ways that the comic book publishers could benefit from digital comics. And now it seems that there is some movement on that horizon from DC Comics. Of course, I had nothing to do with it, but I do feel a bit of self-righteous justification to know that my previous article wasn't just me spouting off at the mouth, but there are other people who feel the same.

According to CBR, DC Comics announced today that they are venturing into online digital comics with their new website at http://www.zudacomics.com. According to the press release, Zuda Comics will feature "comics by creators who've yet to be discovered, with content covering a wide variety of genres." They have released the 8 different logos that you can see on the right, which "reflect the wide range of content they expect to publish".

Now I admit that this is not exactly what I was talking about a month ago, but just the fact that one of the major companies is getting into online comics has got to be a good sign of bigger things to come. If this is sucessful and popular, an they see that this new branch of the medium works, what would be to stop them from taking the next step, as I have suggested previously?

So what else do you need to know about Zuda Comics? Well, I got just about everything they have released so far right here.

• Zuda Comics will be all-new, original comics made specifically for the web.



• Zuda Comics will collect submissions from the Zuda community — that means you. You make the web comics and send them to us for publication.


• Not only that, but the majority of comics we publish will be selected by the Zuda community. We'll put up a batch of the comics you submitted each month. Then you and all of the other users will vote, comment, and rate the comics. The one you guys like the best is the one we'll sign up for a one-year contract.


• Zuda Comics official tag line is "Click Here To Continue."


• Zuda Comics are all-original — that means we're not taking ideas based on characters or stories from DC Comics' other imprints — you know, like Batman.



• Westerns? Biographies? Actions? It's all good. What we're after is quality. We look forward to a full range of genres and styles.


• Zuda Comics is headed up by Ron Perazza.


• Dave McCullough oversees the Online group.


• Zuda's Editor is Kwanza Johnson.


• Our Coordinator and Assistant Editor is Nika Denoyelle.


• Richard Bruning is our boss — the SVP — Creative Director of DC Comics.



• A Zuda Comics page is actually a 4:3 aspect ratio screen.


• We're giving away postcards at the San Diego Comic Con in order to make a giant collaborative Web Comic.


• The full Zuda Comics site will go live in October, 2007. Thats when you'll be able to submit comics, vote on your favorites, build your profile page and more.


• We partnered up with IBM to build this site.


• We're using a lot of open source technologies to build the final Zuda Comics site. That's just how we roll.


• We'll be updating this site all the way through the summer and on to the full site in October. That's why you should register now — that way we can let you know about the updates.



• We take great characters and great stories seriously. We hope you do too.

Sounds good to me, kind of a comics youtube or something along those lines. We have a comic book MySpace, so a user created community of comic books was a logical conclusion. I am pretty excited about this and later this summer, I am going to try out my artistic chops (which are more or less non-existent) and gt a comic ready to submit when this goes live in October.

They will be using a 4:3 aspect ratio, so if anyone else wants to get in on it, use that as a template or check here. The site promises regular information and you can register to have anything new sent to you as it becomes available. Or you can just check here regularly and I will post everything about this that I find.

CG

HvB #8: Fortress Sitting

Issue #8 of the 50 Foot Robot Studios webcomic Hulk vs. Bizarro is here! This is the second part of the story from last Thursday, which you can find here, and it is called "Fortress Sitting".

Don't forget that you can find Hulk vs. Bizarro here twice every week on Mondays and Thursdays. If you know of another webcomic that you feel should be featured here, contact me and I will make it happen.