Direction

My term has been hectic. Between the mould devil moving in to my house, deadlines, and domestic disputes about the proper decorum of give and take, my geeky nature has had to take a back seat in my existence.

I'd say it picked up again on the 13th of this month. I was in Asda with two of my friends, at 11 o'clock having a loud conversation about Spiderman, when the bells went and we were asked to give a minutes silence for Remembrance Day (This was the Sunday after the 11th).

After the strangest experience of "OMG someone froze time!" I got the magazine in question (A Spiderman edition of Comic Heroes), and the conversation continued on our way to Waterstones, where we had more geekness, getting very odd looks, as we occupied the graphic novel shelf, from people crowding between Crime and Dark Fantasy.

My friend mentioned how he'd spent his summer reading comics online. I almost scolded him, as I hold specific thoughts on the issue of copy right, when he said he'd been doing it legally. He'd paid a subscription to a couple of websites, where he'd been able to read.

The first was the Marvel website. It's about £7 a month, for unlimited access to the archives. If you go for the year subscription, it's about £4 a month (that's about £50 a year, probably less).

The second is comiXology. Which I haven't got around to yet, but you can buy DC comics off them.

By Tuesday night I had signed up to Marvel. I think I'm possibly addicted to Spiderman right now. I'm slowly reading my way through his archives. I love his whit.

But a couple of recommendations for you.

The Ultimate Spiderman series is absolutely brilliant. (2000-2009). The dry whit and humour of Spiderman, and the artwork is lovely.

Secondly, the Fairy Tales series. I've read the 4 based on Spiderman, and working my way towards the Avengers, and the X-men. It's retelling of various fairy tales, but based around the Marvel characters. The art work is wonderful, and the stories are pretty damn good too.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go research Web Cultures.

Or maybe I'll get distracted by the prospect of reading Spider-girl. Hard to say.

witchkräft

Well, as me being an AMV maker and all, I decided that I'll post my videos here too, just to make this blog even geeky'ier.
Anyway, this was my submission for the nowJapan'11 Cosplay AMV Con, where it won the first place.
The concept of the video is spiritism, hallucinations and dreams. I tried to mix up the footage effectively, so that it would look like one, whole music video, despite the fact that there are 2 different anime series and the original video involved. I hope you like it.
P.S. watch on full screen please.

Anime: Bakemonogatari, Kara no Kyokai -Garden of Sinners-
Music: Pendulum - Witchcraft


~Squall

What kind of geek are you?

I had an idea which involved googling geek. The plan was to put the first thing I find under images as a new blog entry. Instead I found this big list of geek types.

What kind of geek are you??

-TJC

Batman Begins (Blog: 2)

Batman Begins

I'm starting the Batman blog reviews with the Christopher Nolan series.
                   

Batman Begins - 2005

Year: 2005
Director: Christopher Nolan
IMDb Ratings: 8.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: 85/100

Batman Begins is a film inspired by the Batman comics which explores the origins of the “caped crusader”.
Christopher Nolan adapted the comic book hero to be more realistic to the world we live in; as opposed to the fantasy fiction world of comics.


The film is cleverly written based around the comics of “The Dark Knight’s” origins. Some people complained that it took too long before we saw a glimpse of Batman. If Nolan used the comics as a storyboard instead of a guideline the fans would be disappointed. 


The origins of Batman started when he was a very young teenager after his parents were murdered. He grew up travelling the world to get taught by the masters in escape, mixed fighting arts, criminology and so on. He trained to peak perfection: both physically & mentally. If Nolan had of added all that content in to the film there wouldn't be a Batman until the very end. Or until the next film: which would’ve made the film unexciting. 


The film has adapted well with the comic book antagonists making them very realistic to present settings. The villain adaptions were Ra’s Al Ghul (& The League of Shadows) Carmine Falcone & Jonathan Crane (The Scarecrow); there were also a few small cameo appearances of Victor Zsasz (Mr. Zsasz). The antagonists are portrayed well in the film, especially by Liam Neeson, who in my opinion you couldn’t find a better actor to play such a mysterious counterpart to Batman: Ra’s Al Ghul. 


The ending of the film is a great tie-in to the next film (The Dark Knight) by Sergeant Gordon (Commissioner by this point in the film) handing Batman a joker playing card. This is a great way to end the first film by using a cliff hanger for the second with Batman’s biggest enemy hinted at the end.


Batman Begins is a great film & Christopher Nolan has arguably in my opinion made the best Batman film series to date. My only negative view on the film series is on Batman’s accent. Unlike other Batman media like the animations where Bruce Wayne puts on a different voice: Christian Bale’s attempt at a Batman voice could’ve had more work put in. It is even a pop-culture joke on YouTube for being hard to understand (videos below: both reference this).


Title: The Dark Knight- Joker Interrogation Scene Spoof
Uploader: MonkeyandApple
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2yv8aT0UFc


Quoted in this youtube short: “are you like gargling marbles or something? I can barely understand you”
Title: How It Should Have Ended: How The Dark Knight Should Have Ended
Uploader: HISHEdotcom
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seBpXt8_6xs

Batman: Gotham Knight

There is an animated film adaption of Batman Begins: “Batman: Gotham Knight”. This adaption explores the origins and mythology of The Batman. The animation will also be the next film I review.










- TJC

For your Entertainment

Originally my first post was going to be a review of Turf, a comic I’m reading, but I haven’t finished it yet. Then I found this, and I though I could share some awesome things with you all.

Minecraft meets Halflife. Surprisingly good graphics for what they’re recreating.



Internet Receptionist. Because you know it happens.

The Escapist : LoadingReadyRun : Annette: Internet Receptionist

And how Mario should have ended.



I’ll be back with a review of Turf later this week.